BRITISH VIRGINIA
British Virginia is a series of scholarly editions of documents
touching on the colony. These original sources range from
the 16th and 17th-century literature of English exploration to
the 19th-century writing of loyalists and other Virginians who
continued to identify with Great Britain. British Virginia editions
appear principally in digital form, freely downloadable. The
editorial offices sit appropriately at the research university nearest
both the falls of the James River, and the site of the first English
college planned for this side of the Atlantic Ocean, Henricus
Colledge.
VIRGINIA COMPANY SERMONS
This subseries features sermons preached to and printed for the
Virginia Company of London. The first three of these sermons
supported an unprecedented effort to use religion to rally broad
support for the troubled colony in 1609, and to defend it from
a host of criticisms. William Symonds, Robert Gray, and William Crashaw each contributed to the cause a sermon quarto,
published by William Welby. The company revived the practice
of printing sermons in 1622 with quartos by Patrick Copland
and John Donne. The subseries offers the first type facsimiles
of most of these sermons, and searchable, color photographic
facsimiles as well. It also provides important evidence of early
objections to Virginia, a context for Donne’s celebrated address,
and additional evidence with which to reconsider the religion of
the company and colony.
Virginia:
A Sermon Preached at White-Chappel
Type facsimile edition
William Symonds
Joshua Eckhardt, editor
Virginia Company Sermons 1.1
BRITISH
VIRGINIA
Richmond VCU Libraries
2013
BRITISH VIRGINIA
Forthcoming British Virginia editions
General editors
Joshua Eckhardt Sarah Hand Meacham
Elizabeth Jacqueline Ambler Letters, 1780-1826,
edited by Sarah Hand Meacham
Catherine Ingrassia
The Verse Miscellany of Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor of
Virginia, edited by Joshua Eckhardt
Advisors
Kevin Farley British Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842005
Richmond, Virginia 23284-2005
Forthcoming editions in the Virginia Company Sermons
subseries, edited by Joshua Eckhardt
http://wp.vcu.edu/britishvirginia/
William Crashaw, A Sermon Preached in London before the right honorable the Lord Lavvarre (1610)
Robert Gray, A Good Speed to Virginia (1609)
Patrick Copland, Virginia’s God Be Thanked (1622)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons AttributionShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of thie license,
visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
John Donne, A Sermon vpon the VIII. verse of the I. Chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles (1622)
ISBN: 978-1-62262-000-5
The general editors welcome proposals for scholarly editions
of documents related to colonial Virginia. Please see the British
Virginia website for proposal guidelines.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Starting a digital academic publisher has required the help of
several people. No single person has provided more help in
establishing British Virginia and producing this edition than Neal
Wyatt, the project’s first graduate research assistant. With her expertise in library science, Neal has worked with VCU Libraries to
develop the publication scheme and cataloguing protocols, and
with me to help me understand them; arranged for ISBN numbers and Creative Commons licenses; taught herself InDesign to
help replicate the layout of the Symonds quarto; measured and
remeasured the original book for accuracy; and engaged the full
range of her work with great enthusiasm and dedication. Neal’s
help has come with the support of Dr. Eric Garberson who, as
director of the Media, Art, and Text Ph.D. program, arranged
for her assistantship. Dr. Garberson subsequently provided an
additional assistantship for Lauren Boasso, who transcribed several forthcoming Virginia Company sermons.
At VCU Libraries, Dr. Kevin Farley has endorsed British
Virginia from the moment Dr. Sarah Meacham and I met with
him to introduce it. He promoted the project at the library, accepted an invitation to the advisory board, and agreed to assist
with the blind peer review process. His colleagues John Duke,
Jimmy Ghaphery, and Sam Byrd effectively built the publication
platform on the VCU Libraries website, using Dspace. Among
other trials, this involved negotiating with the editor on how to
pre-catalogue a title from a publisher that did not yet exist. All
of this support came with that of University Librarian John
Ulmschneider.
In her former role as associate dean of the College
of Humanities and Sciences, Dr. Catherine Ingrassia encouraged me to start this project much sooner than I had imagined,
and to apply for internal funding. She located matching funds,
work space, and furniture. She arranged for additional funds to
purchase ISBN numbers, thanks to Dr. Timothy Hulsey and the
VCU Honors College’s support for humanities programs. She
also accepted an invitation to the advisory board. Since this, Tim
3
Hulsey has also worked with Dean James Coleman to donate
Honors College funds for peer review honoraria.
The Presidential Research Incentive Program, initiated by
Dr. Michael Rao, provided British Virginia with financial support, research time, and computer equipment. Without this research fund, the project would not have started for several more
years, if at all. Dr. Francis Macrina, Vice President for Research,
and Michael Newsome, Assistant Vice President and Director of
Finance, administered the funds. Margret Vopel Schluer, English
Department Business and Personnel Manager, arranged for their
use.
Before any of this, Dr. Meacham graciously fielded a
Renaissance literary critic’s excited questions about her field,
and agreed to support the project as co-editor and contributor. Sarah also found two excellent, anonymous peer reviewers. These readers, too, deserve our gratitude. Dr. Terry Oggel,
Chair of the English Department, and Dr. Bernard Moitt, Chair
of the History Department, supported our joint application
for funding, and then worked to accommodate the resultant
course releases—an effort that, in English, required the work of
Dr. David Latané, Associate Chair, as well as Margret Schluer.
Former Dean Fred Hawkridge also supported our proposal, as
did a number of anonymous evaluators and voters.
Several of the same people worked to fund a week at
Harris Manchester College, Oxford, which became part of
a month in England, devoted to comparing editions of the
sermons and preparing future British Virginia editions. For
their lavish hospitality at Harris Manchester, I thank Principal
Revd. Dr. Ralph Waller; Fellow Librarian Sue Killoran; Library
Assistant Katrina Malone; and Steward Nick Jefferies. Prof. Peter
McCullough at Lincoln College, Oxford, supported this trip
and the sermon series, graciously welcoming me not only to the
college but also to the study of early modern English sermons.
His colleague at Lincoln and on The Oxford Edition of the Sermons
of John Donne, Dr. Sebastiaan Verweij, joined the effort, checked
Lincoln’s copy of the Symonds sermon after I had left Oxford,
and set the bar for textual collation too high for this subseries to
reach any time soon. Other contributors to the Oxford edition
of Donne’s sermons have also fielded questions and shared
information, including Drs. Arnold Hunt, Mary Morrissey, and
Emma Rhatigan. Dr. Daniel Starza Smith generously hosted me
in London, turning his Camden flat into a reading room for early
modern English sermons and manuscript miscellanies.
Thanks also to Susan Glover for checking the Boston
Public Library’s copy for me.
At the Virginia Historical Society, Chief Librarian
Frances Pollard welcomed work on the VHS copies of the
Virginia Company sermons. She and her colleagues Amber Jones
(whom I met in a Renaissance literature course at VCU) and
Brenna McHenry hosted me on a sometimes daily basis, always
with courtesy and generosity. Frances Pollard also brokered the
deal with E. Lee Shepard, Vice President of Collections and
Sallie and William B. Thalhimer III Senior Archivist, and Jamie
Davis, Visual Resources Manager and Exhibits Preparator, that
enables British Virginia to produce searchable, color photographic facsimiles of the Virginia Company Sermons.
At the Library of Virginia, Brent Tarter offered early
and continuous encouragement, which Dr. Sandra Treadway,
the Librarian of Virginia, later seconded. At VCU, Dr. John
Kneebone has given us a sense of the importance, and scope,
of the work that British Virginia could take on. Finally, the
Fall-Line Early Americanists graciously devoted one of their
monthly meetings to reading, appreciating, and improving this
edition. In addition to Dr. Mathias Bergmann, for arranging the
meeting, and Brent Tarter, for hosting it, I thank especially Drs.
Mark Valeri, Woody Linwood Holton III, Marion Nelson, Terri
Halperin, Robin Lind, Ryan Smith, Brooke Newman, and of
course Sarah Meacham, for their encouraging and helpful suggestions. Despite his inability to attend the meeting, Dr. Peter
Kaufman took up the draft with enthusiasm and responded with
excellent advice. Any failure to take advantage of the FLEAs’
suggestions for improvement is entirely my own.
14 March 2012 / 24 April 2013
4
INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH VIRGINIA
Lord finish this good worke thou hast begun; and marry this land, a
pure Virgine to thy kingly sonne Christ Iesus; so shall thy name
bee magnified: and we shall haue a Virgin or Maiden Britaine, a
comfortable addition to our Great Britaine.
William Symonds, "The Epistle Dedicatorie," sig. A3v
In the opening pages to his sermon for the Virginia Company,
William Symonds combined, to spectacular effect, two common
notions. First, he acknowledged that the promoters of the Virginia colony—who had ambitiously applied the name to much
of the eastern seaboard—had named it after Elizabeth I, the
“Virgin Queen”1
Our late Soueraigne Q. Elizabeth (whose storie hath no peere
among Princes of her sexe) being a pure Virgin, found it, set
foot in it, and called it Virginia.2
Second, Symonds evoked Saint Paul’s representation of the
church as the bride of Christ. He used the Pauline conceit to
make the colony’s virginal title amenable to Elizabeth’s decidedly
un-virginal successor, King James VI and I:
Our most sacred Soueraigne, in whom is the spirit of his
great Ancestor, Constantin the pacifier of the world, and planter of
the Gospell in places most remote, desireth to present this land a
pure Virgine to Christ. (sig. A3v)
1 The original 1606 charter that established the two Virginia companies, of
London and of Plymouth, laid claim to “that parte of America commonly
called Virginia, and other parts and territories in America either appartaining unto us or which are not nowe actuallie possessed by anie Christian
prince or people, scituate, lying and being all along the sea coastes between
fower and thirtie degrees of northerly latitude from the equinoctiall line
and five and fortie degrees of the same latitude and in the maine lande
betweene the same fower and thirtie and five and fourtie degrees, and the
ilandes thereunto adjacente or within one hundred miles of the coaste
thereof ” David Beers Quinn, ed., New American World: A Documentary
History of North America to 1612 (New York: Arno Press and Hector Bye,
1979), 5: 192; Samuel M. Bemiss, ed., The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London (Williamsburg: The Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration
Corporation, 1957), 1.
2 William Symonds, Virginia: a sermon preached at White-Chappel (London: by I.
Windet, for Eleazar Edgar, and William Welby, and are to be sold in Paules
Church-yard at the signe of the Windmill, 1609; STC 23594); sig. A3v.
5
Thus King James, represented fancifully as a descendent of the
first Christian ruler, patriarchally arranges a marriage between his
virginal colony and Christ. In order to maintain the bride’s purity,
Symonds went on to insist, the managers of the expedition “are
carefull to carry thither no Traitors, nor Papists that depend on
the Great Whore”—the whore of Babylon from the book of
Revelation, which reformers routinely applied to the Roman
Catholic Church. With this, Symonds broke off and began to
pray the words reproduced here as the epigraph, asking the Lord
to “marry this land, a pure Virgine to thy kingly sonne Christ
Iesus.” Still praying, Symonds declared that, as a result, “we shall
haue a Virgin or Maiden Britaine, a comfortable addition to our
Great Britaine.”
With this evocative phrase—“a Virgin or Maiden
Britaine”—Symonds introduced the concept that gave his sermon its secondary title: “Virginea Britannia.” After the “Epistle
Dedicatorie,” virtually every page spread of his quarto features
the phrase “Virginea Britannia” in large type across the top.
Thus Symonds, or one of the stationers who produced the little
book, unwittingly provided the British Virginia project at Virginia
Commonwealth University with the Latinate root of its name.
British Virginia publishes scholarly editions of documents ranging from early modern literature promoting English exploration,
such as Symonds’ sermon, to the 19th-century writing of loyalists and others who continued to identify with Great Britain,
whether politically or just culturally. The general editors welcome
proposals for scholarly editions within this broad range. British
Virginia editions appear principally in digital form, specifically in
the now-free Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Readers
may freely download them from the British Virginia website.
Libraries may freely catalogue and acquire them without the cost
even of shelf-space. The general editors simply ask that you help
us widen and preserve access to these important sources by reproducing and storing them, whether on hard drives, other discs,
or acid-free paper, and in any combination of inventive bindings
and boxes, computer housing, and good old-fashioned roofs and
walls.
INTRODUCTION TO “VIRGINIA COMPANY SERMONS”
In addition to serving as the first publication of British Virginia,
Symonds’ sermon inaugurates the subseries “Virginia Company
Sermons.” This subseries offers, in most cases, the first type
facsimiles of sermons preached to, and printed for, the Virginia
Company of London. It also offers the first searchable, color
facsimiles of any of these documents—all for free.
The first two sermons to the Virginia Company did not
appear in print until early in 1609, over three years after it had
received its first royal charter, and nearly two years after it began
to establish and settle Jamestown. In the company’s first charter,
dated 10 April 1606, King James had made a brief, conventional
reference to spreading Christianity abroad, at least eventually. He
explained that the company’s “noble...work” may:
hereafter tende to the glorie of His Divine Majestie in propagating of Christian religion to suche people as yet live in
darknesse and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and
worshippe of God and may in tyme bring the infidels and salvages living in those parts to humane civilitie and to a setled
and quiet govermente3
Yet the rest of the 1606 charter proceeds to more immediate
and material concerns (such as the royal tax on any precious
metals the colonists might discover). Moreover, no printed
book reiterated James’ reference to religious conversion in
Virginia until 1609. Yet, by the end of 1608, negative reports
from Jamestown had made clear to its backers in London that
the colony needed the sort of broad support that perhaps only
scripture and sermons could compel. Jamestown would require a
socially diverse coalition of investors and settlers, ranging from
nobility to yeomen, and certainly including the skilled craftsmen
without whom the failing colony would not survive. Attracting
such heterogeneous supporters to a risky and dangerous venture,
3 Bemiss, Three Charters, 2.
6
given the colony's failure to produce anything that would turn a
quick profit, required appealing to non-commercial motivations,
such as the religious ones that the company had done little or
nothing to confirm publicly before the 1609 Virginia Company
sermons. As this introductory essay will show, within weeks after
the first two of these sermons helped to introduce its new missionary motive, the company received a second charter that ends
by placing the religious conversion of natives as its highest possible goal. Read in isolation from the sermons, the brief references to religion in the first two charters may not seem to differ
substantially. Yet considered together, the second charter and the
early 1609 sermons appear to have supported an unprecedented
campaign (a “media blitz” even) to save Virginia by promising to
offer salvation to its native inhabitants.4
The Virginia Company’s religious promise must have
made many Londoners doubtful. For the first three sermons
in the subseries show how hard preachers had to work to try
to convince their audiences that the Virginia Company had any
right to enter or claim land that natives had rightly inherited and
were peaceably governing. This characteristic of the sermons
requires a significant re-evaluation of not only the religion of colonial Virginia but also the capacity of early modern Londoners
to turn critiques of colonization against their own fellow citizens.
Yet, in reacting to the Virginia Company of London,
what sort of organization were contemporaries questioning?
King James had established two separate companies with the
1606 charter: one for London, and a second for Plymouth,
Bristol, Exeter, and other western ports. He placed over both
a “Counsell of Virginia,” which would remain in England and
consist of investors from each group, arguably in order to
“ensure that national interests did not become subordinated to
those of the two companies.”5 So investors not only funded but
also managed the Virginia companies, yet they did so with the
4 Rebecca Anne Goetz, The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christiantiy Created
Race (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2012), 46.
5 James Horn, A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America
(New York: Basic Books, 2005), 37; Bemiss, Three Charters, 5.
permission and supervision of the crown. This dual interest,
for both the king and certain subjects, may help explain why
the Virginia Company of London can sometimes look like a
colonial arm of a nascent royal empire, nevertheless staffed
by self-interested traders, and at other times appears to be a
trading company that could not make money for anyone until
independent farmers discovered tobacco. Yet the main reason
for this confusion has been that modern readers cannot help but
see colonial Virginia as something of a birthplace for the United
States, even though the colony’s founders could have hardly
imagined, and could not have condoned, this fate. Writing over
a hundred years ago, Susan Kingsbury, the great authority on the
records of the Virginia Company, attempted to turn attention
away from its role in colonial history and, instead, toward its
relationship to dozens of contemporary trading companies.
In Kingsbury’s words, the typical supporter of the Virginia
Company “was a trader first, a colonizer afterwards”:
those interested in a project for Virginia insisted that the
investment would redound to the glory of God, but they expected to convert the savage by trading with him; they urged
the advancement of the Kingdom, but they meant to secure
dividends on their adventure by bringing back to England the
supplies she needed most—the materials for shipbuilding;
they insisted on the immense gain to come from the development of the resources of the new country, but they expected
the lion’s share for the stockholder.6
6 Susan Myra Kingsbury. “A Comparison of the Virginia Company with
the other English trading companies of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.” American Historical Association. Its Annual Report...or the year 1906,
vol. 1 (Washington DC, 1908), 159-76; 161. Yet some scholars have used
the sermons in particular to offer alternative accounts. Without denying
its commercial interests, Louis Wright long ago represented the company
as much more consistently religious than most historians have. Louis B.
Wright. Religion and Empire: The Alliance Between Piety and Commerce in English
Expansion, 1558-1625 (New York: Octagon Books, 1965), 84-114. Much
more recently, Andrew Fitzmaurice has argued that the company sought
to establish a Ciceronian commonwealth.
7
The Virginia Company’s relationship to other trading companies
arguably looks a lot stronger in the second charter than in the
first, since the later document includes the names of the members of several of other trading companies.
The sermons preached to, and printed for, the Virginia
Company in the months surrounding its second charter may
qualify as some of the most overlooked documents promoting
the colony. David Beers Quinn decided to exclude only this one
genre of promotional Virginia Company literature from his
mammoth compilation of primary documents, New American
World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612, which
ran to five large volumes and 851 texts, yet had no room for the
sermons:
No examples (they are long-winded and in content only of intermittent interest) of the sermons preached to potential subscribers are given. There the theme that the company was set
up largely to save the souls of the heathen could be pressed
and the missionary impulse stirred in Protestant audiences
who might not care to let all the credit for conversions go to
the papists even if, during the years 1606-1612 at least, the
company made no attempt to implement its pious promises.7
This may qualify as the first expert assessment of “Virginia
Company Sermons”: “they are long-winded and in content only
of intermittent interest.” Quinn explains why several members
of his generation chose to deemphasize the sermons, and some
of the other London documents on the Virginia Company: they
misrepresent what was happening in Virginia. For historians
focusing on what occurred in and around Jamestown, which did
not include anything like proselytizing for several years, sermons
in America, irrespective of the material gain that English colonies had
thus far failed to produce. Andrew Fitzmaurice. Humanism and America: An
Intellectual History of English Colonisation, 1500-1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 58-102.
7 Quinn, ed., New American World, 5:233; Fitzmaurice, 65.
promising the religious conversion of natives fostered misperceptions.
Fortunately, colonial historians’ focus on Virginia as a
place in the new world, to the relative exclusion to its role in
London sermons, did not deter John Parker from writing, for
a festschrift dedicated to Quinn, an article that may still serve
as the best survey of the Virginia Company literature that appealed to potential investors and settlers on religious grounds
in 1609 and ‘10.8 Just as fortunately, scholarly interests have
changed since Quinn compiled his collection in the late 1970s,
effectively a generation ago (when the general editors of British
Virginia were indeed small children). Colonial historians, most
notably Edward Bond, have since taken the religion of early
Virginia much more seriously.9 Simultaneously, scholars of early
modern English literature and history—including Lori Anne
Ferrell, Jeanne Shami, Peter McCullough, and VCU’s own Boyd
Berry—have demonstrated the importance of English sermons,
especially those of John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes.10 The
“Virginia Company Sermons” occupy the intersection of these
two scholarly interests, inviting students of English sermons
to consider the view from Virginia, and colonial historians that
from English pulpits.
8 John Parker, “Religion and the Virginia Colony, 1609-10,” in The Westward
Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America 1480-1650, edited by K.R. Andrews, N.P. Canny and P.E.H. Hair (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 1978), 245-70.
9 Edward Bond, Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth-Century
Virginia (Macon GA: Mercer University Press, 2000) makes especially
good use of Virginia Company sermons. For a complementary account,
see also Douglas Bradburn, “Eschatological Origins of the English Empire,” Bradburn and John C. Coombs, eds., Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011).
10 Boyd Berry, Process of Speech: Puritan Religious Writing & Paradise Lost
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976); Lori Anne Ferrell, Government by Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers, and the Rhetorics of Conformity
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Peter McCullough, Sermons at
Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998); Jeanne Shami, John Donne and Conformity in Crisis in the Late Jacobean Pulpit (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003).
8
Thanks in large part to the scholars mentioned above,
the “Virginia Company Sermons” now offer quite a lot of interest. In addition to the religious and political issues that attend
virtually all early modern English sermons, the subseries features
an exceptional store of contemporary objections to Virginia,
beginning with those that Symonds structured his entire sermon to counter, and concluding with the ones that John Donne
bravely drew from his Biblical text in 1622. The unedited photographic facsimiles of the earlier sermons have done little or
nothing to recognize the remarkable objections to early English
colonization that some of them countenance.11 So the “Virginia
Company Sermons” subseries features digital type facsimiles of
the five sermon quartos most clearly produced for the company,
complete with introductory essays and bibliographical descriptions. As the following section on the copy-texts explains, digital
type facsimiles offer searchable reproductions of the spelling and
layout of the original printed sources. Thanks to the generous
cooperation of the Virginia Historical Society, the type facsimiles also form the basis for a corresponding set of photographic
facsimiles of the VHS copies of the same five sermons. Unlike
the currently available facsimiles of these rare books, the British
Virginia editions will be color, searchable, and free.
Although the Virginia Company sermons include state11 William Symonds, Virginia: a sermon preached at White-Chapel (Amsterdam:
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; New York: Da Capo, 1968). Microfilm and
microfiche facsimiles include those produced for “Early English Books,
1475-1640” (Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms International, 1957),
726:12; “Library of Thomas Jefferson” (Washington DC: Microcard Editions, 1973); “Selected Americana from Sabin’s Dictionary,” “Literature
of theology and church history in the United States and Canada; group
18,” and “New Cambridge bibliography of English literature; group 26”
(Louisville KY: Lost Cause, 1979, rpt. 1986); and possibly an additional,
unnamed and undated, series (Englewood CO: Microcard Editions, n.d.).
Digital editions for paid subscribers include those produced for “Sabin
Americana, 1500-1926,” <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabinaf
=RN&ae+CY100556729&srchtp +a&ste=14> and “Early English Books
Online,” <http://gateway.proquest.com/ openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003
&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_val_fmt=&rft_id=xri: eebo:image:11682>.
ments that some readers will find typical of Christian missionaries, Parker offered (and may have overstated) one reason why
people would not have found them typical at the time: according
to him, the 1609-10 company literature constitutes “the first
serious proposal to carry England’s religion to a non-Christian
people abroad.”12 Company preachers faced a London public
that was not yet used to spreading the gospel overseas. They
figured that the apostle Paul and Saint Augustine had already
accomplished all this for the old world, and they had not yet
seriously started competing with Catholics to evangelize the new
world. So, if the Virginia Company preachers sound like the
same old English, protestant, overseas missionaries, this may be
because they are the oldest, having adapted English missionary
rhetoric to a trans-Atlantic venture.
Yet Virginia Company preachers needed to convince
their auditors and readers of more than its new religious purpose. The 1609 sermons (in old-style dating) show preachers
confronting not only the company leaders, who had invited
them to support the venture, but also other Londoners who
had a number of grave doubts about, and sharp criticisms of,
Virginia. To be sure, the 1609 sermons record objections to the
colony only in the words of its invited promoters and defenders. As Parker acknowledged, “since the objectors published no
sermons or pamphlets articulating their negative attitudes, the
pro-Virginia responses are the best insights we have into the
anti-Virginia points of view” (246). The first three “Virginia
Company Sermons” will therefore provide the best available
evidence of the first English criticisms of English colonization
overseas. The subseries may help scholars identify the critics,
and to explain why they opposed the company. The fact that the
company’s opponents left no statements of their views, and no
apparent sign of their identities, makes all the more striking the
preachers’ and the company’s repeated decision to acknowledge
their fellow citizens’ objections to Virginia. The company would
have had little or no incentive to represent Londoners’ criticisms
12 Parker, “Religion and the Virginia Colony,” 247.
9
as more challenging or persistent than they actually were.
Nevertheless, each of the three 1609 company preachers acknowledged the same strong objections, indicating that
the criticisms remained persistent at least until the company
quit printing sermons altogether in early 1610. As the next two
editions in the subseries will detail, Symonds seems to have
established the talking points for the other two people who
wrote sermons for the company in the same year: R.G., probably
Robert Gray, and Symonds’ friend, the well-placed preacher to
the Inner and Middle Temples, William Crashaw. Symonds’ title
page records the earliest date to appear in any of the company
sermons, claiming that he preached it on “25. April. 1609” at
“White-Chappel,” apparently the medieval church of St. Mary,
Whitechapel, well within walking distance (over the Thames) of
Symonds’ parish, “Saint Saviors in Southwarke,” itself only steps
away from Shakespeare’s Globe. Only three days later, on “April
28. Anno 1609,” “R. G.” signed the dedicatory epistle to his company sermon, without giving any indication that he had actually
preached it anywhere.13 William Welby entered Gray’s possibly
unpreached sermon into the stationers’ register on 3 May, where
five days later Eleazar Edgar then entered Symonds’ probably
earlier sermon.14 Welby and Edgar published the Symonds quarto
together, and their partnership seems to have gone no farther
than this (their names appear together on no other book). Some
ten months later, on “Febr.21. 1609”/1610, Crashaw preached
a sermon to the company, which Welby registered on 19 March
and printed no less than a week later, with the year “1610”
(which began on 25 March).15 Over 1609 then (according to the
Julian calendar), William Welby was serving as the central
stationer in the Virginia Company’s campaign to defend itself,
using sermons, from a series of persistent critiques—an effort
that the company seems to have abandoned before it actually
stopped the criticisms.
Most of the objections to Virginia had to do with individuals’ relatively personal reasons for not venturing their purse
or person with the company: investors would likely not see a
return on their investment; the passage and work would be difficult; many settlers would die in the process and could even be
forgotten back home. Yet, before dealing with this line of rather
self-interested reservations, each of the 1609 company preachers
first answered the principal objection that people were making
to the Virginia Company in 1609: that it was unconscionable,
unjust, and even unlawful to take land that others have rightly inherited and were peaceably governing. For those of us who have
presumed that such a criticism, so obvious to virtually everyone
now, was unthinkable in Jacobean England, its prominence and
persistence in Virginia Company sermons can come as a shock.
Symonds introduced the primary objection to the Virginia Company in the following terms:
13 R[obert]. G[ray]., A Good Speed to Virginia (London: by Felix Kyngston for
William Welbie, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Greyhound in Pauls Church-yard, 1609; STC 12204), sig. A4r.
14 Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers
of London; 1554-1640 A.D. (London: privately printed, 1 July 1876; rpt.
Gloucester MA: Peter Smith, 1967), vol. III, f. 182v.
15 William Crashaw, A Sermon Preached in London before the right honorable Lord
Lavvarre, Lord Gouernour and Captaine Generall of Virginea (London: for
William Welby, and are to be sold in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the
Swan, 1610; STC 6029); Arber, Transcript, vol. III, f. 193r.
According to Symonds then, people have been throwing this
“one scruple” in the “way” of a preacher who would use scripture to support colonization. These critics have been saying that
others already possess and govern the country in their own right.
And they have been asking how conscience or equity could allow
them to thrust the rightful inheritors from their lands. The marginal note for this passage reads: “Obiection. Not to enter other
Princes Territories.” Critics of Virginia were thus insisting on the
And heere might we haue proceeded to the next point, were
it not for one scruple, which some, that thinke themselues
to be very wise, do cast in our way; which is this in effect.
The countrey, they say, is possessed by owners, that rule, and
gouerne it in their owne right: then with what conscience, and
equitie can we offer to thrust them, by violence, out of their
inheritances? (10)
10
rights not of other European or Christian princes or merchants
(as had King James in the companies’ first charter, for instance)
but of the indigenous “owners” and “Princes” who already ruled
and governed the land that the company would call Virginia. So
the English notions of land rights that would eventually benefit
Virginia settlers first posed a problem for the company back in
London, where people were refusing to support the venture in
recognition of the land rights of native rulers.
Symonds took nearly six pages to dismiss just this first
objection, before proceeding to devote the majority of his
sermon to arguing against several other ones. He did so first by
reminding his opponents of the long list of esteemed conquerors who would now suffer dishonor, if Jacobean Londoners
suddenly decided to consider conquest shameful. He summoned
the “great Princes, and Monarkes, of Assyria, Persia, Media,
Greece and Rome” to tell them that their accomplishments, so
long admired, “are now araigned, and must bee found guiltie”
(10-11). He asked who can blame Cyrus, whom God anointed
“to subdue nations” (11). He informed Jacob that his “blessed bow
and sword...must be broken and burnt: and thou must bee condemned for vnlawfull conquest” (11-12). He challenged Joshua,
“where is thy vertue, to set thy feete vpon the neckes of princes,
in their owne kingdomes”? He demanded of David, “how wilt
thou answere for the blood thy sword hath shed?” He called on
Solomon to answer for his father the psalmist’s advice to take up
arms against his enemies and “enlarge thy borders” (12).
Yet Symonds suspected that this line of argument would
not defeat his opponents, but serve only to get them to qualify
their complaint.
I am perswaded that at the onely naming of so mightie
Monarches, and holy conquerors, our obiecters out of their
modestie will with some distinction qualifie their proposition,
and say that it is not lawfull, by force to inuade the Territories
of other Princes, that are in quiet possession, in some sort,
and in some cases. (12-13)
This may sound like a reasonable qualification: that invasion may
occasionally be lawful but not against princes who are in “quiet”
or peaceful “possession” of their territories. Yet Symonds saw
no difference between this subtle distinction and those of the
devil and the Jesuits:
I know that the diuell himselfe, with all his distinctions, that
euer he made, which are recorded in scripture, or which he
left in hell, in his cabinet of Abstruse Studies, (locked safe,
till hee found out the Iesuits his trustie secretaries to keepe
them:) I say none of them all can arme a subiect against his
prince without sinne. (13)
With this Symonds set up his strongest counter-attack: none of
the distinctions that the objectors could make could arm a subject against his prince without sin. This conflates asking a question about the Virginia Company with taking up arms against the
monarch who established it. Deciding not to support a failing
colony thus equals committing insurrection against the king
himself. Right after aligning the critics with Jesuits, Symonds
proceeded to associate them with people on the opposite end
of the religious spectrum in early modern England: anabaptists.
And if I might be so bold, I would faine aske one question of
these obiecters, that come dropping out of some Anabaptists
Spicery: whether (if it be vnlawfull to conquere) the crowne
sit well on the head of our most sacred soueraigne? (whose
dayes be as the dayes of heauen O Lord) For by this obiection they
shew, that had they power to vntwist that, which in so many
ages hath beene well spunne, they would write him crownelesse, as farre as hee hath his title from the conqueror. (13)
Symonds thus suggested, however imaginatively, that the critics
of the Virginia Company were both Jesuits and anabaptists. In
other words, he affiliated, on one hand, some of the Church of
England’s most Catholic opponents and, on the other, some of
its most puritanical antagonists. In order to make this charge,
11
Symonds need not have believed that actual Jesuits and genuine
anabaptists were responsible for the resistance to the Virginia
Company’s public relations campaign. He was likely evoking
these opponents as extremes, simply to present his own rather
puritanical version of Anglicanism as moderate. Yet, juxtaposed
to this sermon, contemporary statements of anabaptist pacifism,
or even of Jesuit concern over the prospect of a protestant footing in the New World, may suggest the identities, or at least the
communities, of those to whom Symonds was responding.
Whether anabaptist, Jesuit, or neither, the targets of
Symonds invective end up looking like traitors in his sermon.
The preacher asks them whether they think “the crowne sit well
on the head of our most sacred soueraigne?” And he charges
that, if they had the power to do so, “they would write the [king]
crownelesse, as farre as hee hath his title from the conqueror.”
To object to any conquest is thus to deny the legitimacy of all
conquests, including the one that resulted in King James’ sovereignty. Symonds argued that the objectors’ apparent pacifism
masked violent treason. Compared to it, the conquest proposed
by James and the Virginia Company seemed downright peaceful
and orderly.
Symonds imagined that the objectors would object to this
charge of treason as well: “O but God forbid, saith the obiecter,
that wee should doe any wrong at all, no not to the diuell” (13).
The company’s opponents so resisted conflict, in Symonds’ caricature, that they feared wronging even the devil, or disciplining
even a child: “our obiecter would not whip a child to teach him
learning and vertue, for feare of doing wrong” (14). The Virginia
Company could hurt the devil, of course, by making disciples
of the nations, as Christ’s own apostles had done: “What wrong
I pray you did the Apostles in going about to alter the lawes
of nations, euen against the expresse commandement of the
princes, and to set vp the throne of Christ” (14). One might ask
how concerned the apostles had been with altering the laws of
nations, and whether they continued to look for a “throne” for
Christ even after he refused political power, died, and ascended.
Nevertheless, the marginal note represents both the apostles and
Symonds faithfully, acknowledging that they saw it “No wrong
to bring in the Gospel” (13).
By defending conquest and evangelism, Symonds had
done most of the work of dismissing the primary objection
to Virginia, but not all of it. Critics could still say, “O but, in
entring of other countries, there must needes be much lamentable effusion of bloud” (14). Yet, in the words of the marginalia, “No blood [was] ment to bee shed.” Catholics might
shed the blood of natives, but true “professors of the Gospell”
would follow the example of Jacob and his progeny when they
merely “soiourne[d]” in the land of Pharaoh, and of Samson who
lived “peaceably” with the Philistines until he was “constrained
by iniustice” to defend himself (this latter example especially
unconvincing) (14-15). They could even “instruct the barbarous
princes,” as did Joseph and Daniel (15). Despite his defense of
conquest, Symonds insisted that Virginia would constitute not a
“bloudy inuasion” but a “peaceable Colony.”
And if these obiecters had any braines in their head, but those
which are sicke, they could easily finde a difference betweene
a bloudy inuasion, and the planting of a peaceable Colony
(15)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Symonds insisted that the Virginia
colony would involve no “bloudy inuasion.” Yet the reasons that
he did so may surprise some modern readers: Londoners in 1609
presumed that the Virginia Company’s actions in the new world
would involve entering the land both unlawfully and violently
and, for this reason, they initially hesitated or refused to promote
the colony.
For his closing argument against this principal objection
to Virginia, Symonds reminded its opponents that what they
say against the colony they may also be saying against their own
ancestors:
And if our obiecter bee descended of the Noble Saxons
bloud, Let him take heede lest while he cast a stone at vs, he
12
wounds his father, that first brought him in his loynes from
forreigne parts into this happie Isle. (15)
Objecting to the legality of the Virginia Company thus amounts
to stoning one’s own father, not to mention knocking the crown
from the king’s head, effectively undermining one’s own place
in a family and kingdom. You cannot oppose colonization and
conquest because you owe everything that you have and are to
the same.
With this, Symonds decided that he had disposed of the
primary objection and, so, could move on to all of the other reasons that Londoners did not want to support the colony: “Their
reasons are diuerse according to their wits. One saith, England is
a sweete country...O but, saith another, my kin dred would not
be forsaken” (18-19). Understandably, many potential adventurers just wanted to stay in England or take care of their families,
some perhaps for ulterior motives: “Some few, and those very
few, are not willing to leaue their fathers house, where any thing
may bee hoped for after the death of their parents” (19). Such
settlers could lose their inheritance in Virginia. Others “obiect
they are loth to goe from home; because they know not what
shall become of them” (28). Others “will not goe abroad, for
feare of loosing the blessing of God.” These said,
Sure hee cannot haue the blessing of God, that is mingled among
the heathen. Hee must lose the preaching of the word of God,
and the purity of the Sacraments, thus is he vndone in bodie
& soule. (30)
Without sermons and sacraments, an adventurer to Virginia
would lose his body and soul. Others feared being forgotten in
their home country, even before they died. They asked, “What
should a man do abroad?....If I go out of my Country, I shall be
but swallowed vp among strangers, my memorie will bee sooner
rotten abroad, though I liue; then if I were long laide in my graue
at home” (31-32). Other potential settlers feared the malice of
Catholics: “The perill, say the obiecters, is great by the Papists
that shall come on the backe of vs” (43). Others accuse the
company of millenarianism:
But stay, saith one, you run too fast without good ground: you
seeme to encline to the Millenaries, or such as looke for the
gospell to be spread ouer all the world. You must know that
is done manie a faire yeare agoe, that we need not looke for
a new Reuolution of that. It were safer to tremble at the last
iudgement, whose trumpet is euer sounding in our eares: Arise
from the dead and come to iudgement. (47)
Such critics argued that others had already spread the gospel to
the known world; they considered anyone who proposed to do
the job again a fanatic. More urgent to these people than Christ’s
commission to baptize the nations was his promise to return:
“safer to tremble at the last iudgement.”
The following edition details precisely how Symonds
defended the Virginia Company from each of these charges, at
least for the readers of his printed quarto, if not precisely for
the hearers of his oral address. Yet, while his arguments may
have convinced many, they did not convince everyone. Just three
days after Symonds preached, Robert Gray dated the epistle
dedicatory for a printed sermon that responds to three of the
same objections. As the next edition in the subseries will show,
Gray added over two more pages to the effort to defeat “[t]he
first obiection...by what right or warrant we can enter into the
land of these Sauages, take away their rightfull inheritance from
them, and plant our selues in their places, being vnwronged or
vnprouoked by them.”16 Quite like Symonds, Gray thus acknowledged that Londoners were objecting that the Virginia Company had no right to take the natives’ “rightfull inheritance” and
supplant them, especially since they had neither wronged nor
provoked the English.
Ten months after this, in February 1609/10, Symonds’
friend William Crashaw still saw a need to counter many of the
16 G[ray]., A Good Speed to Virginia, sig. C3v.
13
very same criticisms when he preached to the company. He
devoted four more pages to “[t]he first discouragement: question
of the lawfulnes.” Furthermore, he acknowledged that “many”
had continued to raise the objection, “some” of them even for
understandable, respectable reasons:
The first and fundamentall is the doubt of lawfulnes of the action,
the question being moued by many, and some not out of
curiositie, nor other sinister, but conscionable and Christian
respects: and this keepes many from assisting it; for how may
they put their helping hands to that which they are not resollued in conscience, to be lawfull and warrantable in it selfe.17
So ten months after Symonds and Gray had started to defend
the Virginia Company from the primary charge of unlawfulness, Crashaw thought that the charge had grown even stronger: “many” had questioned “the lawfulnes of the action,” and
the question had kept “many from assisting it,” including some
who withheld their support “out of...conscionable and Christian
respects.” In other words, even some good Christians were not
“resollued in conscience” that the venture was “lawfull and warrantable in it selfe.” Crashaw thus found some of the company’s
critics sincere, even if ultimately misguided. He did the best
he could to set them right, before referring them back to “M.
Simonds his Sermon”:
And this may suffice for the lawfulnesse of the action, especially seeing whosoeuer would be satisfied more particularly,
may haue recourse to a learned and godly Sermon...well pend...
set out by authoritie for that end (sig. D4v)
Thus Symonds ends, where he had begun, the Virginia
Company’s 1609/10 effort to preach against its opponents—
with the opponents apparently stronger than ever. No other
17 Crashaw, A Sermon Preached in London before the right honorable Lord Lavvarre,
sig. D3r.
sermons quite so devoted to and promoted by the company
would appear for over a decade.
Yet other clergymen did more briefly endorse the
Virginia Company in sermons that could only misleadingly be
called “Virginia Company Sermons,” and so do not appear in
the subseries. Nearly a year before Symonds and Gray wrote
their sermons, on 24 March 1608 at Paul’s Cross, Richard
Crakanthorpe attempted to prove that King James’ authority
came from God, and pointed to Virginia as evidence of his piety
and true religion.18 A little more than a week before Symonds addressed the company, on 17 April 1609 Robert Tynley preached
against the idolatry and false miracles of the Catholic Church,
offering Virginia as one of the true miracles that God had done
for the Church of England.19 While Welby was working on the
Symonds and Gray quartos, on 7 May George Benson ended a
long sermon with a brief encouragement to settlers to show the
native peoples a better example of Christianity, and of “gentle &
humane dealing,” than had Spanish Catholics.20
Later that month, on 28 May, Daniel Price gave quite a
bit more attention to Virginia at the end of a sermon—yet far
less than its title promises with the phrase, “a reproofe of those
that traduce the Honourable Plantation of Virginia.” Price
asked his audience for “leaue to examine the lying speeches that
18 Richard Crakanthorpe. A sermon at the solemnizing of the happie inauguration
of our most gracious and religious King Iames (London: by W. Iaggard for Tho:
Adams, dwelling in Paules Church-yard, at the signe of the blew Bell,
1609; STC 5979), sigs. D2r-v; Parker, “Religion and the Virginia colony,”
254 (records the date as “14 March 1608”).
19 Robert Tynley. Two Learned Sermons. The one, of the mischieuous subtiltie, and
barbarous crueltie, the other of the false Doctrine, and refined Hæresis of the Romish Synagogue. Preached, the one at Paules Crosse the 5. of Nouember, 1608. The
other at the Spittle the 17. of Aprill, 1609. (London: by W. Hall for Thomas
Adams, 1609; STC 24472), pp. 67-68; Parker, “Religion and the Virginia
Colony,” 260.
20 George Benson, A Sermon Preached at Pavles Crosse the Seaventh of May, M.
DC. IX. (London; by H.L. For Richard Moore, and are to be sold at his
shop in S. Dunstans Church-yard, 1609; STC 1886), p. 92; Parker, “Religion and the Virginia Colony,” 261.
14
haue iniuriously vilified and traduced...the Plantation of Virginia.”
He rebuked “those scandalous and slanderous Detractors of the
most Noble Voyage.”21 And he explained why these detractors
should stop traducing it:
The Philosopher commendeth the Temperature, the Marchant
the commodity, the Polititian the opportunity, the Diuine, the
Pietie, in conuerting so many thousand soules. The Virginian
desireth it, and the Spaniard enuyeth vs, and yet our own lasie,
drousie,,yet barking Countrimen traduce it: who should honour
it, if it were but for the remembrance of that Virgine Queen
of eternal memory, who was first godmother to that land and
Nation. (sig. F2v)
Yet, while Price thus joined the preachers who were defending
the Virginia Company from its critics, he did not specify any
of their objections; he did not devote much of his sermon to
the matter; he did not dedicate his quarto to the company; and
he did not have it printed by Welby. Neither the company nor
anyone else printed a sermon for the Virginia Company until
William Crashaw did nearly a year later. And then no one did so
again for over a decade.
A few other texts, in other genres, can help make sense
of the spurt of sermons that defended the Virginia Company
from detractors, especially in April and May of 1609. Robert
Johnson, chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln, introduced the
Virginia Company’s newfound religious purpose, and started
the task of defending it from critics, in the quarto tract Nova
Britannia, which Samuel Macham entered into the stationers’
register on 18 February 1608/9.22 After more than two years of
21 Daniel Price, Savls Prohibition Staide. Or The Apprehension, and Examination of
Savle. And the Inditement of all that persecute Christ, with a reproofe of those that
traduce the Honourable Plantation of Virginia. (London: for Matthew Law,
and are to be Sold in Pauls Church-yard, neere vnto Saint Austines Gate, at
the Signe of the Foxe, 1609; STC 20302), sig. F2r.
22 Arber, Transcript, vol. III, f. 179v.
merely sporadic and passing references to religion in Virginia
Company literature, Johnson ambitiously claimed that the
Virginia colony would
advaunce and spread the kingdome of God, and the knowledge of the truth, among so many millions of men and
women, sauage and blind, that neuer yet saw the true light
shine before their eyes, to enlighten their minds and comfort
their soules.23
Yet he knew that his audience would have doubts about this
new religious claim on behalf of the company. He admitted that
“some obiect” that he and the company were “being led on by
our owne priuate endes”; moreover, they asked “how we can
warrant a supplantation of those Indians, or an inuasion into
their right and possessions” (sigs. B4v-C1r). Here, just as soon
as he first announced the Virginia Company’s new missionary
motive, Johnson recognized that some would “obiect” that it
amounted to the self-interested “supplantation” of “Indians”
and “inuasion into their right and possession.” Johnson defended the company by insisting that it intended not to supplant, but
to benefit, native peoples:
And as for supplanting the Sauages, wee haue no such intent
: our intrusion into their possessions shall tend to their great
good, and no way to their hurt, vnlesse as vnbridled beasts,
they procure it to themselues (sig. C1r-v)
The company will not supplant but will benefit the natives, unless they behave like “beasts” and, therefore, require the settlers
to supplant them—or “procure” their own “hurt.” Until then,
adventurers would make clear to the natives that they had come:
23 Robert Johnson, Nova Britannia (London: from Samvel Macham, and are
to be sold at his Shop in Pauls Church-yard, at the Signe of the Bul-head,
1609; STC 14699.5), A4v.
15
not to supplant and roote them out, but to bring them from
their base condicion, to a farre better. First, in regard of God
the Creator; and of Iesus Christ their Redeemer, if they will
beleeue in him. And secondly, in respect of earthly blessings.
(sig. C1v)
In this, Johnson began to prepare the way, in February, for the
preachers who would address the company and print their sermons in April and May, beginning with Symonds. Yet by the time
that he did so, Symonds may have thought that objections on
behalf of native rights and possessions had grown stronger. For
he devoted much more attention to countering them than had
Johnson.
Shortly after Symonds and Gray’s sermons appeared in
print, King James signed the Virginia Company’s second charter, dated 23 May 1609.24 Among its innovations, one of the last
paragraphs of the lengthy charter made official the religious
motive that pro-Virginia preachers had introduced over the past
three months, announcing:
the principall effect which wee cann desier or expect of this
action is the conversion and reduccion of the people in those
partes unto the true worship of God and Christian religion
(54)
Even if this claim resulted in no other conversion before Pocahontas, it did complete the religious conversion of the Virginia Company, which had appeared rather unconcerned with
the proselytizing up until these months, even in London. The
preachers Johnson, Symonds, and Gray had each worked to effect this conversion of the company into a religious body. These
writers could not have worked alone, though. The names of
both William Crashaw, Bachelor of Divinity, and William Welby,
stationer, appear in the second charter, suggesting that they had
24 Samuel M. Bemiss, The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London
(Williamsburg: The Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration, 1957), 54.
both the motive and the opportunity to have helped initiate the
Virginia Company sermons (32, 37).
Crashaw could have certainly influenced Symonds to
start the sermon series. After an unsuccessful stint as a schoolmaster in Oxford and three rectorships in Lincolnshire, Symonds preached a sermon commemorating James VI and I’s
first visit to the diocese of Lincoln, on 25 April 1603 (the feast
of St. Mark, the same feast day on which he would address the
Virginia Company six years later). Yet as Stephen Wright, his
ODNB biographer has explained, “[f]ollowing the promulgation
of the new canons in 1604...his differences with the practice of
the established church came to the notice of authorities.” Until
the bishop visited in August, Symonds did not wear the surplice.
In 1606, as a lecturer at both Christ Church, Greyfriars, London
and St. Saviour’s in Southwark, he again had to be instructed to
read public prayer and administer the sacraments in the surplice,
and he again conformed. At his last Lincolnshire rectorship,
Halton Holgate, Symonds had benefited from the patronage
of a promoter of the Virginia Company, Robert Bertie, Lord
Willoughby. He had also gotten to know Crashaw, the wellconnected preacher at the Temple. One or both of these men
would seem to have encouraged Symonds to move to London
and support Virginia, which evidently became an abiding concern of his. A couple years after seeing his Virginia sermon in
print, Symonds helped to bring to press the two parts of A Map
of Virginia (1612), attributed to Bertie’s more famous patronage
client, Captain John Smith. While this demonstrates Symonds’
continuing interest in Virginia, it shows support for Smith and,
therefore, a willingness to aggravate those who had excluded the
talented yet controversial captain from the company in 1609.
According to Wright, “the Virginia Company acted to block the
publication of the book in London: it had quarreled with Smith
25 Stephen Wright, Symonds, William (b. 1556, d. in or after 1616),” in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman,
Oxford: OUP, http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/view/
article/26892 (accessed November 9, 2011).
16
and sought to muzzle criticism of its own stewardship of the enterprise.”25 Thus Symonds, the Virginia Company’s first preacher
in print, came to antagonize the company’s ruling faction in
print.
Yet in the 1609 sermon quarto presented here, Symondsdirected his aggression and his persuasive powers against not the
Virginia Company but its opponents, especially its most local
critics in London, whom he tried to coax over to the colony’s
side. In so doing, he arguably preserved their critiques, some
of the earliest on record, of English colonization and overseas
evangelism. While he must have filtered and skewed his contemporaries’ objections, he and the preachers who joined him in
defending the company in 1609/10 represented them as far more
numerous, formidable, and ethical than most modern readers
would otherwise imagine.
THE EDITIONS AND SOURCES
The “Virginia Company Sermons” subseries offers both digital
type facsimiles and searchable, photographic facsimiles of five
printed quartos held at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Whereas the black-and-white photographic facsimiles
previously available of these sermons feature images of individual copies, type facsimiles reproduce them in modern, and
now digital, type. Although a type facsimile duplicates less of a
book less faithfully than does a photographic facsimile, it also
features a more legible, and a searchable, text. Furthermore, the
work of rekeying and rechecking each letter in a book teaches
one much about it, which leads to the introductory essays and
bibliographic descriptions that further distinguish “Virginia
Company Sermons” from the unedited photo facsimiles. Our
digital type facsimiles reproduce original spelling, line breaks,
page numbers, signatures, measurements, and virtually every
feature that we can learn how to duplicate without photographs
or scans. This has required months of not only transcribing and
quadruple-checking the text, but also taking measurements of
individual features and learning Adobe InDesign well enough to
replicate them. Among her many invaluable contributions to the
project, Neal Wyatt, British Virginia’s first graduate research assistant, has done an amazing job teaching herself InDesign and
consulting the original quarto to check my measurements and
take many others.
Yet a type facsimile cannot reproduce exactly. Every
feature that we have painstakingly reconstructed reveals at least
one more that we cannot represent. I have chosen a digital font
that differs from the one that the printer, J. Windet, used; most
glaringly, it lacks the long s, which I have conflated with the
short s. We are replacing engravings with simple rectangles. Even
if we learned our tools well enough to fabricate the font and
engravings, a digital type facsimile would still misrepresent them
by regularizing them. Despite hours and months of attempts to
acknowledge the often odd spacing between letters, the computer program makes them somewhat uniform, as it does individual
17
letter forms and the rules that form the borders. Of course, each
of Windet’s pieces of type was distinct, with its own damage,
and each imprint from them could differ, depending on the application of ink and the features of the paper: digital type tends
to appear much more regular on a properly-working computer
screen. Windet’s rules are not straight; our rules are identical. So
a digital type facsimile constitutes something of an idealized approximation, perfecting much of the variation of an early modern printed book and, if only for this reason, always imperfectly
reproducing it.
A type facsimile also reproduces a single copy of a book,
as opposed to a critical edition, which collates several copies
of a text in order to identify variants and to arrange copies in a
genealogical recension or sequential press run. Since Symonds’
sermon survives only in copies of a single printed edition, a
critical edition would serve primarily to determine the order in
which Windet and his colleagues produced and, more to the
point, corrected the book in the process of printing it. A complete critical edition, based on an analysis of all extant copies,
would record every stop-press variant that resulted from any
corrections. It would demonstrate, among other things, that
Windet or his compositor had initially placed the engraved initial
S upside-down and signed the epistle “Fours” instead of “Yours.”
These two mistakes remain in the New York Public Library
copy. I have decided to publish the present edition after consulting only a few copies of the sermon, and forgoing such critical
editorial work, with only so strong a defense for doing so: British
Virginia’s digital publication strategy makes it quite affordable to
publish a critical edition or, for that matter, a modernized text at
a later time. In fact, because of the generous partnership of the
Virginia Historical Society, we are able to publish, alongside the
five type facsimiles, a second set of five searchable, color, photographic facsimiles.
We are editing the Virginia Historical Society’s copies of
the sermons for a few reasons, and not only because they reside within a (vigorous but pleasant) walk from VCU. The VHS
seems to be one of only three institutions that owns all five of
these sermons; the University of Virginia and the British Library
have all five as well. Yet, especially in the case of the BL, these
other sets of all five are part of much fuller collections of early
modern English sermons and books. The VHS, on the other
hand, has arguably isolated the five sermons devoted to the
company by including them in an otherwise small collection of
contemporary sermons, and drawing the line precisely where the
subseries does, excluding Price, Crakanthorpe, Benson, and Tynley, who merely mention Virginia.26 Editing the VHS copies ackowledges that the library has already, in its own way, done much
of the work of recognizing the relationship that these sermons
have to one another and to Virginia. Of course, in this, the VHS
was itself following the book collectors who had preserved these
sermons.
The VHS copy of Symonds’ sermon (Rare Books F
229 S98) is a beautifully preserved, rare example of the sort of
unbound, untrimmed copy that book browsers would have encountered in William Welby’s bookstall in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
It has been loosely stabbed through in three places, partially covered only in a probably contemporary, rather stained and small,
half-sheet of paper. The other copies that I have consulted have
been bound, either on their own or in a sammelband with other
works. A bookworm has done more to modify the little book
than has any hand: no marginal notes predate those in pencil
added by modern librarians or, possibly, booksellers or collec26 The VHS has just one other contemporary sermon, which contains only
notes on Virginia: John King, A sermon at Paules Crosse, on behalfe of Paules
Church, March 26, 1620 / by the B. of London (London: by Edward Griffin for Elizabeth Adams, 1620; STC 14982; Rare Books BV4210 .K58
1620). It also has a treatise refuting another work by one of the Virginia
Company preachers: John Floyd, The overthrow of the Protestants pvlpit-babels,
convincing their preachers of lying & rayling, to make the Church of Rome seeme
mysticall babell. Particvlarly confuting VV. Crashawes sermon at the crosse, printed
as the patterne to iustify the rest. VVith a preface to the gentlemen of the Innes of
court, shewing what vse may be made of this treatise. Togeather with a discouery of M.
Crashawes spirit: and an answer to his Iesuites ghospell. By I. R. Student in diuinity.
([St. Omer]: anno 1612; STC 1111; Rare Books BX3702.A2 F7).
18
tors.
The book stays in a modern clamshell box and four-flap
folder of thin cardboard covered in blue, waxy cloth and, on the
inside, light blue paper. This box and folder came from “the celebrated library” of Boies Penrose II (1902-1976), the nephew of
Boies Penrose (1860-1921), the Senator from Pennsylvania. Pasted in the center of the left side flap is the bookplate of “Boies
Penrose,” with an image of “OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE.”
This is superimposed upon the earlier, partially-visible bookplate
of “BOIES PENROSE II.” The book went up for auction with
much of the rest of the younger Penrose’s library in 1971.27
On the other flap is a manilla pocket enclosing a typescript on the letterhead of a book dealer who likely acquired the
book at the Sotheby sale, at which he was quite active (according to an incomplete list of buyers and prices included with at
least one copy of the catalogue): “Kenneth Nebenzahl INC. /
33 NORTH MICHIGAN AVENUE • CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
60601 • TELEPHONE: 312/641-2711 • CABLE: NEBENBOOKS.” The footer explains, “Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts
& Prints relating to the Western Hemisphere. Member: ABAA,
ILAB.” The undated typescript, some of which deserves scrutiny, reads:
SYMONDS, WILLIAM. Virginia. A Sermon Preached at
White-Chappel...the Adventurers and Planters for Virginia....
Small 4to., stitched in original paper wrapper, uncut;
large portion of final leaf, blank except for printer’s
27 Sotheby & Co., The Celebrated Library of Boies Penrose ESQ FSA FRGS, 2
vols. (London: Sotheby & Co, 1971), 78-79: 242 Symonds (William) Virginia. A sermon preached at White-chappel, in the presence of many, honourable and worshipfull, the Aduenturers and Planters for Virginia, first
edition, most of last leaf, blank except for printer’s rules, torn away, inner margin
with a little worming, but a very fine copy, uncut, stitched in the original
white paper wrapper, in a cloth wrapper and case [STC 23594; Church 344]
small 4to I. Windet, for Eleazar Edgar, and William Welby, 1609
*** The first sermon preached before the Company of Adventurers to
Virginia, suitably based on Genesis, 12, i-iii.
rule, torn away; but a fine copy in original state. Protective case.
London, for Edgar & Welby, 1609
First edition. First sermon preached to the Virginia
colonists before their departure to America - the message
of advice spoken to those who established the first permanent English colony in the New World. The sermon was undoubtedly given late in May, preparatory to the expedition
of seven ships and 500 men that sailed under Gates and
Somers.
This fine copy is more than an inch wider and nearly an
inch taller than the Huntington Library copy.
Church 344. DNB XIX, p. 278. JCB II, 93. Sabin 94125.
STC 23594. Vail 19.
Nebenzahl, or his associate, professed a lack of doubt only
when making a doubtful claim, dating the performance of the
sermon to May, after omitting the April date on the title-page.
Beneath the superimposed Penrose bookplates is the
simpler one of the collector who would seem to have purchased
the book from Nebenzahl, in the seventies or eighties: “Gordon
M. Jones, M. D. / Falmouth / Virginia.” Above the pocket is the
VHS bookplate: “Virginia Historical Society / Acquired Under
/ Thomas Kirbye / First Settlers Fund.” Within the volume,
among the modern cataloguing notes, this line, written in pencil
up the left margin of sig. A1v, gives the last piece of the provenance puzzle: “9-5-88 Jones...Kirbye.” This indicates that the
VHS purchased the volume directly from Dr. Jones, on the fifth
of September in 1988, with Kirbye funds. While none of the
book’s modern owners edited it or published the claims with
which I open this edition, they did anticipate this subseries by
collecting the sermons together, among related works. Needless
to say, without the value that they placed on these rare books,
and the work they have done to make them accessible, we would
lack the important evidence that the sermons provide.
19
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION
This technical description admittedly repeats, yet usefully condenses, information that the following pages spread out. It
records the text of the title page, drop-heads, running titles,
epistle subscription, catchwords, and explicit—with the font size
regularized. It also includes a codicological collation that distinguishes the gatherings and identifies the signed leaves, as well
as information on the pagination. Again, nothing short of a full
textual collation identifying every variant in every extant copy
will teach us all we can learn about the printing of this quarto.
Yet this description can help those scholars with the opportunity
to carry on such work, as it offers a range of features that one
can check quickly when consulting other copies (which it lists
below), in order to begin the process of identifying its variants
and its place in a press run.
VIRGINIA. | [rule] | A | SERMON | PREACHED AT |
White-Chappel, In The | presence of many, Honourable and
| Worshipfull,the Aduenturers and Plan- | ters for Virginia. |
25.April.1609. | PVBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT | And Vse
Of The Colony, Planted, | And to bee Planted there, and for
the Ad- | uancement of their Chris- | tian Purpose. | By William Symonds, Preacher at Saint | Saviors in Southwarke. | [rule]
| Ivde.22.23. | Haue compassion of some, in putting of difference : | And other saue with feare,pulling them out of the fire. |
[rule] | London | Printed by I. Windet, for Eleazar Edgar, and |
William Welby , and are to be sold in Paules Church- | yard at the
Signe of the Windmill. | 1609.
4º, A-H4, ($3 (-A1, B3) signed), 32 leaves.
Sigs. A1r t., A1v ruled blk, A2r-A4r Dedication dh:
[illustration] TO | THE RIGHT NO- | BLE, AND WORTHIE
| Advancers Of The Standart | of Christ, among the Gentiles, | the Aduenturers for the Plantation of | Virginia, W.S.
prayeth | that Nations may blesse them, | and be blessed by |
them. | [rule], A2v-A4r rt: The Epistle | Dedicatorie., A4r
sub: Yours most heartily affected in | the cause of Virginia. | William
Simonds., A4v ruled blk, B1r-H3v text dh: VIRGINEA | Britannia. | A | SERMON PREACHED AT | White Chappell,
In The | presence of many the Aduentu- | rers, and Planters
for | Virginia. | [rule] | Genesis 12.1.2.3. | For the Lord had said
vnto Abram, Get thee out of the Coun- | trey, and from thy kindred, and
from thy fathers house, vn- | to the land that I will shew thee. | And I will
make of thee a great nation, and will blesse thee, and | make thy name
great, and thou shalt be a blessing. | I will blesse them also that blesse
thee, and curse them that curse | thee, and in thee shall all the families of
the earth be blessed. | [rule], B1v-H3v rt: Virginea. | Britannia.,
H4r-v [55-56] ruled blk.
Pagination: B1r-H3v paginated 1-54 without error.
Press-figures: none.
Catchwords: A2r breake, (breake^), A2v uen (~), A3r Angell
(~), A3v that (~), B1r earth (~), B1v For (~), B2r These (~),
B2v that (~), B3r that (~), B3v land^ (land,), B4r mercie (~),
B4v call (~), C1r is (~), C1v tude, (~), C2r burnt^: (burnt :),
C2v lawfull^ (lavvfull,), C3r stones, (~), C3v iustice, (~), C4r
such^ (such,), C4v ha^m^ (ha m,), D1r the (~), D1v indeede^
(indeede,), D2r mightier (~), D2v pleaseth. (~), D3r then (~),
D3v we (~), D4r neth (~), D4v part, (~), E1r A (~), E1v rose
(~), E2r promise (~), E2v thee, (~), E3r such (~), E3v kinde, (~),
E4r willing^ (willingly), E4v the (~), F1r the (~), F1v know-^
(knowledged), F2r know (knovv), F2v and (~), F3r Satans (~),
F3v ly (~), F4r hid (~), F4v of (~), G1r vnto (~), G1v ple (~),
G2r exempt (~), G2v Aske (~), G3r offen- (offending), G3v all
(~), G4r condem- (condemnation), G4v The (~), H1r the (~),
H1v Kings (~), H2r the (~), H2v ny (~), H3r tence (~).
Explicit: H3v FINIS.
Copies: Beinecke Library (Yale University) 2003 265;
Birmingham Central Library [in ESTC]
Bodleian Library (Oxford University) 4º F 34(9) Th.;
Boston Public Library H.26.270;
British Library, General Reference Collection 694.e.4.(17.);
Cambridge University Library, Rare Books, Bb*.11.42(E);
Chapin Library (Williams College) Am1609 .S85 vault;
Durham University Library STC (2), 23594
20
Folger Shakespeare Library STC 23594;
Huntington Library, Rare Books 3362;
Library of Congress Rare Book/Special Collections F229 .S98 English Print;
Lincoln College, Oxford N .2.27 (item 4);
Newberry Library, Special Collections Vault Ayer 150.5 .V7 S9 1609;
New York Public Library, Schwartzman Building, Rare Book Collection *KC 1609 (Symonds, W. Virginia)
Princeton University Library, Rare Books (Ex) 1230.893;
University of Virginia Library Special Collections A 1609 .S95; F229 .S98 1609;
Virginia Historical Society, Rare Books F229 .S98;
William L. Clements Library (University of Michigan) C 1609 Sy.
21
V I R G I N I A.
A
SERMON
PREACHED AT
W h i t e -C h a p p e l , I n T h e
presence of many , Honourable and
Worshipfull,the Aduenturers and Planters for V i r g i n i a .
2 5 . April. 1 6 0 9.
PVBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT
And Vse Of The Colony, Planted,
And to bee Planted there, and for the Aduancement of their C h r
t i a n Purpose.
By W
i s-
i l l i a m S y m o n d s , Preacher
S a v i o r s in Southwarke.
I
v d e.
at Saint
22.23.
Haue compassion of some, in putting of difference :
And other saue with feare,pulling them out of the fire.
L
o n d o n
Printed by I. W i n d e t , for E l e a z a r E d g a r , and
William Welby , and are to be sold in Paules Churchyard at the Signe of the Windmill.
1
6
0
9.
T O T H E R I G H T N OB L E, A N D
W O R T H I E
Advancers Of The Standart
of C h r i s t , among the G e n t i l e s,
the Aduenturers for the Plantation of
V i r g i n i a, W. S. prayeth
s
that Nations may blesse them,
and be blessed by
them.
Right Noble and worthy,
V C H as doe prayse the
worthies , do cloth them
with the robes of others
that haue gone before
them in vertues of like
nature. A thing which
I cannot doe of your Plantation , seeing
neither Testament (that I can find) dooth
afford vs a Parallell in men of like qualitie. That great , and golden S E NT E N C E , The seede of the w oman , shall
A 2
br eake,
Gene.3.15-
Dan.2.35 .
Ephe.6. 17.
Euseb. de vita
Constantini.
Reue.6. &. 19.
T he E pistle
D e d i c a t o r i e.
breake the Serpents head,(the onely subiect
of all ages) with a part of the wisedome
that is folded therin , hitherto hath beautified the world with admirable and plea
sant varieties ; more rich and delightfull
then all the ornaments of Princes palaces,
or the Curtaines of Salomon. Here may we
see the Flood, the burning of Sodom ; the
drown ng of Pharoh : the subduing of the
Cananites by Dauid and his sonnes ; the
breaking of Monarchies into chaffe : the
surprising & conquering of great Nations,
by Fisher-men , with the sword of the spirit ; the stamping of the Dragon (the Heathen Empire) into peeces by Constantine;
the desolation , and nakednesse of Antichrist, now readie to be cast into the fire.
Manifest demonstrations of the Serpents
bruised head. But here is not all. These
things were done in a corner, in comparison of that which is in hand , and remaineth to be accomplished at the last iudgement. Long since the Gospell of Christ did
ride forth conquering that hee might ouercome. And NOW , the hostes that are in hea uen
uen doe follow him on white horses. Now the
Lord hath made bare his holy arme , in the sight
of all the Gentiles ; and all the ends of the earth
shall see the salutatiõ of our God.NOW many
Mighty Kings haue set their Crownes vpon the head of Christ. The valiant souldier saith , The shields of the world belong to
God. The true Nobilitie, haue vpon their
horse bridles, Holinesse to the Lord.
And
now the wise and industrious Merchant,
doth hold the riches of the Gentiles too
base a fraight for his shippes. He tradeth
for his wisedome,that said : Surely the Isles
wait for me (saith the Lord) and the shippes of
the Ocean most especially : namely to carry
the Gospell abroad. The people in multitudes , like stronge thundrings, doe say
Hallelu-iah. And who is wanting in this
blessed expedition? Surely , not any tribe,
Prayse ye the Lord, - for the people that offered
themselues so willingly. For who can withdraw himselfe from concurrence in so
good an action : especially, when he shall
but read, or heare,that one sentence which
Deborah did sing : Curse ye Meroz, sayd the
A 3
Angell
Isai. 52.10.
Reuel. 19.12.
Psal. 47.9.
Zach.14.20.
Isai. 60.9.
ReueI. 19.6.
Iudg. 5.2.
Iudg.5.23.
Euseb. de vita
Constantin.
T he E pistle
D e d i c a t o r i e.
Angell of the Lord curse the inhabitants therof:
because they came not forth to helpe the Lord.
This land, was of old time , offered to
our Kings. Our late Soueraigne Q. Elizabeth ( whose storie hath no peere among
Princes of her sexe) being a pure Virgin,
found it,set foot in it,and called it Virginia.
Our most sacred Soueraigne , in whom
is the spirit of his great Ancestor,Constantin
the pacifier of the world, and planter of the Gospell in places most remote , desireth to present
this land a pure Virgine to Christ. Such as
doe mannage the expedition , are carefull
to carry thither no Traitors , nor Papists
that depend on the Great VVhore. Lord finish this good worke thou hast begun; and marry this land, a pure Virgine to thy kingly
sonne Christ Iesus ; so shall thy name bee
magnified : and we shall haue a Virgin or
Maiden Britaine , a comfortable addition
to our Great Britaine.
And now Right Worthy, if any aske an
account of my vocation , to write and
Preach thus much ; I answere : that although I could not satisfie their request
that
that would haue me goe; yet I could not
omit to shewe my zeale to the glory of
God. If they aske account of my Dedication, I answere, your vertue hath exacted
it. If any man list to be curious, or contentious, wee haue no such custome, nor the
Churches of God. Hold on your blessed
course, and you shall receiue blessings of
Christ. Bleßed bee the Lord God ; euen the
God of Israell, which onely worketh great wonders, and hath put these blessed thoughts
into your Christian hearts, And blessed be his glorious name for euer,
and let all the earth be filled
with his glory, Amen,
Amen.
Yours most heartily affected in
the cause of Virginia.
William
S i m o n d s.
Psal.72.18.19•
1
VIRGINEA
B
r i t a n n i a.
A
SERMON PREACHED AT
White Chappell ,In The
presence of many the Aduenturers , and Planters for
V i r g i n i a.
G
12. 1. 2. 3.
For the Lord had said vnto Abram , Get thee out of thy Countrey, and from thy kinared, and from thy fathers house, vnto the land that I will shew thee.
And I will make of thee a great nation, and will blesse thee, and
make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
I will blesse them also that blesse thee,and curse them that curse
thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
e n e s i s
T
His Booke of Genesis conteineth the story of the Creation
and Plantation of heauen and
earth, with conuenient inhabitants. The heauen hath Angels, the skie starres, the aire
foules, the water fishes, the
B
earth
2
Matth.22.30.
2.Cor.4.4.
Gen.1.26.27.
28.
Gen.2.17 &
3.3.
Isai. 45. 23.
Gen. 9.1,2.
Gen.11.1.
Gen.11.7
Gen.10.32.
Gen 11.10.
V
i r g i n e a.
earth (furnished with plants and hearbes,and beasts)
was prouided for man a while to inhabite , who after was to be receiued into glory,like vnto the Angels.
Hereupon the Lord (who by his great decree , set
downe by his whole Trinitie, had determined that
man should rule among the creatures ) did make
man , both male and female , After his owne image,
that is,Iesus Christ;and gaue them this blessing,Bring
forth fruit and multiplie , and fill the earth , and subdue
it,&c. And howsoeuer this precept might seeme to
finde interruption by the sinne of man , that had incurred the curse to die the death : yet we see that God
would not,for any thing, alter his oath and word,that
was gone out of his mouth ; for vnto Noah hee reuiued
this precept after the flood.
But as all the commandements of God doe finde
rebellion against them : so hath this most specially;
insomuch that the whole earth conspired to make
open insurrection against it , by building of a Citie,
and Towne,the better to continue together. For the
subduing of which rebellion , The Lord came downe,
and confounded their languages , and scattered them abroad : Not onely to the ouerthrow of their ambition , who sought a great name ; but also to depriue
them of his spirituall grace of saluation , one being
not able to vnderstand the other : And so of the
sonnes of Noah , were the Nations diuided after the
flood.
Among whome the blessed line of Shem is not
onely plentifully remembred; but also commended,
as obedient vnto that first and great Law of God :
For
B r i t a n n i a.
3
For Terah, the father of Abram , with his family, are
reported to be found in a Land not theirs, that they
might fill the earth.
The reason why Terah , and his family remoued, The context.
is recorded in these three verses ; and, in a word, is
the calling of Abram by the Lord to remooue. In
the storie whereof, are these two points : First the
the vocation of Abram , in these three verses , and
then his obedience vnto this heauenly calling,in the
fourth verse. His vocation hath first the commandement of the Lord,and then the reasons and argu
ments, by which God doeth induce him thereunto.
The commandement is to take a iourney; in which
we must consider the places from whence, and whi- Goe out of
ther he was to goe. The place from whence, is not
described Cosmographically, but Morally, conteining three important reasons , in all good sort , to
rest him where hee was. The first is his Countrey, Thy Country.
which was pleasant, and fruitfull: The second his
kindred, which was holy and blessed: The third, his
fathers house , which was louing and rich. Hence
must hee goe , and leaue them all behind , if they
would not goe with him. The place whither hee
must goe is also very generally noted out : Namely,
the place which God would shew him : a place vtterly To the place
vnknowen vnto him, so that from thence he had no which I shall
shew thee.
argument, to quicken him to that voyage.
The arguments which the Lord doth vse to per- Arguments
from promises.
swade Abram, to this iourney are all taken from the
promises of God ; a stronger reason then the very
sweetnesse of Paradise could be vnto a faithful man.
B 2
These
4
V
B r i t a n n i a.
i r g i n e a.
These promises doe partly concerne Abram himselfe, partly those among whom he shall liue. For
himselfe the Lord doeth promise foure things : First
1. A great Na- that,whereas himselfe was childlesse, He would make
tion.
of him a great nation. A thing which the builders of
Babel drifted but were disappointed of by the iudge2.Blesse thee. ment of God. The second promise is, that God will
bleße him , by giuing him the good things of this
present world, and that which is to come : A thing
which the builders of Babel lost , by transgressing
Gods commandement of replenishing the earth.
3. A great
The third thing is , that the Lord will make him a
name.
great name, with much honour , and good report;
which the confounded builders of Babel sought,
4.A blessing.
and missed, because of their sinne. The fourth promise is, that he shall be a blessing: That is, such a one
as men shall be the better where hee commeth; and
so thinke themselues , seeing that through him , as
through a golden Pipe , the Lord will bestow his
blessings vpon his family, and others among whom
he liueth.
The arguments that concerne other men, are of
two sorts; the one is their Temporall estate ; the other their Spirituall. Concerning the Temporall
estate of those amongst whom hee liueth, God will
dispose of, as they dispose themselues towards A
1.Blesse them bram : For the Lord will blesse them, and cause them
that blesse
to prosper , that seeke the blessing and prosperitie of
thee.
Abram. And againe, if they stand otherwise affected
2. Curse them towards Abram , then will the Lord also set his face
that curse
against them , in these words : And I will curse them
thee.
that
5
that curse thee : So that nothing they haue shall prosper, vntill they be gracious and fauorable to Abram.
That which concerneth their Spirituall estate, is, indeede an argument to a faithfull man, stronger then
chaines of Adamant; Namely, that by this meanes,
the people all abroad shall receiue the grace of sal3.All Nations
uation. The thing he promiseth is saluation by the blessed.
Gospel, in this word , I will blesse. The meanes, is
Abram and his seede I e s v s C h r i s t : in these
words in thee. The persons , to receiue benefit by
him, are infinite ; euen all the families of Noah, by
whom the nations of all the earth were diuided ; In
these words , And in thee , shall all the families of the
earth bee blessed. This is the sense of these three verses : In which are very many excellent things to bee
obserued, but we will onely insist vpon those,which
are proper to our occasion,&c.
D o c t r i n e s .
H E Lord called Abraham to goe into another
Countrey. There is no doubt,but that there is a
double manner of calling ; the one ordinary , by
some knowne precept of the word of God : the other extraordinary when as by dreame , or by vision, God requireth any duetie to be done. Now if
it be demaunded how Abraham was called, to goe
into another Countrey : the answere is , both ordinarily and extraordinarily. It was a knowne rule of
the word of God,concluded , and pronounced before the Creation , and often repeated afterwards,
that
T
jº.
Abraham called.
Mat.1. 20.
Num.12.6.
6
Gen.1.26.
Genes.3.23.
Gen.9.2,7.
Gen 12.10.&c
Gen.15.13•
V
i r g i n e a.
that man should spread abroad, &c. and inhabite the
earth, and fill it. Hitherto belongeth that, which
God said ; Let vs make man in our image, and let them
rule ouer the Fish of the Sea, and ouer the Fowles of the
Heauen, and ouer the Beastes, and ouer A l l the earth.
Then must he replenish the earth, else can hee not
rule ouer A l l . To the same effect is that spoken of
Adam, after his fall, that God sent him forth of the
Garden of Eden to till the earth : so that the fall of Adam did not,in the least thing, cause the Lord to alter his first decree. So to Noah after the flood;
Bring forth fruite , and multiply, grow plentifully in the
earth, and encrease therein, and replenish the earth. By
all this it doth appeare, that God did call Abraham abroade, by a general Vocation. But when he is called to a certaine place, and vnder certaine conditions, it is also plaine, that withall, he had a special and
extraordinary calling, either by dreame or by vision, or by some such extraordinary meane, which (til
the Canon of the Scripture came fully in) was to be
obeyed as the written word of God. Yet still wee
must remember that this speciall calling was subiect to the generall law of replenishing the earth .
For although God called him to one land; yet to
vpholde the generall rule, God often laide a necessitie vpon him to spread further: for in this Chapter,
by reason of a famine, hee was constreined to soiourne in Egipt : God did also tell him before hand,
that his seede should be a stranger, in a land that is not
theirs, foure hundred yeares. It is true, that the Iewes
did holde themselues so confined to their owne
land
B r i t a n n i a.
land, that they were as loth to forgoe their inheritance, as from the Sacrament of their saluation: witnes be Naboth , that answered the King; The Lord
keepe me from giuing the inheritance of my fathers vnto
thee. And yet, when God would haue it so, as
when there was famine, Elimelech and his Familie
goe to soiourne among the Gentiles. In time of
warre Dauid tooke his father and mother, and carried them to soiourne with the King of Moab. And
when as we reade that there were dwelling at Ierusalem,Iewes of euery nation vnder heauen ; it is plaine,
that the Iewes did spread abroad, not onely to soiourne for a time, and then to come againe ; but to
inhabite and replenish the whole earth. Paul was also a Iew, borne in Cilicia, euen in a Romane Colonie.
The reason why God will haue his to fill the
earth is,because the Lord would haue his workes to
be knowne. Now in diuers Countries God hath
his diuers workes, of hearbes, and trees, and beastes,
and fishes, and fowles, and serpents, &c. which(if the
people of God come not there ) cannot praise the
Creator.
When Dauid saith, All thy workes praise
thee, O God,and thy Saints blesse thee ; they shew the glory of thy kingdome,and speake of thy power : the implication is manifest,that his Saints must be witnesses
of all his workes,in all Climates ; for else they cannot blesse him in all his workes. Another reason is,
that one that hath the knowledge of the feare of
God,should communicate it to others: Hereupon
is it that Dauid doeth teach vs to pray thus ; Haue
mercie
7
1.King.21.3.
Ruth.1.1.2.
1.Sam.22.3.
Act.2.5.
Act.22.3.
1. Reason.
To knowe
Gods works.
Psal.145.10.11.
II.
Spreading of
knowledge.
Psal. 67. 1,2.
8
V
i r g i n e a.
mercie on vs Lord, and blesse vs, and cause thy face to
shine among vs,Selah. Marke this, that he biddeth vs
pray, God be mercifull vnto vs ; The meanes how, is
this: That they may know thy way vpon earth , and thy
sauing health among all nations; whereby he doth imply, that God hath with-held some mercy from vs,til
all nations haue the meanes of saluation. This was
Exod.11 .9.
a cause why God sent Abrahams posterity into Egipt, that by their meanes Pharaoh,whose heart was
bigge, and would not acknowledge God, might be
constrained to fall down, and say, I haue sinned against
Exod.10.16.
the Lord. The cause also of the captiuity of the
Iewes in Babilon,in the secrete prouidence of God,
Dan.4. 20.21.
was,that the Monarkes of the world, who thought
27 .29.
there was no God could come neere them in
greatnes,might be as beastes before God, acknowledging , that it is God, that giueth Kingdomes to
whom he will. And when the Lord had casued his
people to returne,and to build their Citie and Temple ; yet would not God fore-slowe the inforcing of
his precept,Fill the earth. For whereas,by reason of
his promise,he could not send the people abroad till
Christ came,to make his glory knowne,he brought
Ezek.38.16.23. vpon them Gog and Magog, with their numbersome
Armies : The reason is , that the Heathen may knowe
the Lord : I wil be magnified,and sanctified,and knowne
in the eyes of many Nations. Then here must wee
know, that what inducement Abraham had, to goe
V s e . I.
out of his Countrey, by a generall calling, the same
doth binde all his sonnes, according to the faith , to
goe likewise abroad, when God doth not otherwise
call
B r i t a n n i a.
9
call them to some speciall affaires: How euer , still
they must haue a longing, and a liking to spread the
Gospel abroad. And that this point may be euidently conuicted vnto vs, Christ our Sauiour hath,
according to his infinite wisedome,reuiued the olde
law, of filling the earth, in a most excellent manner:
Goe teach (saith he) all nations, and baptize them in the Matth.28.19 :
name of the Father,the Sonne,and the holy Ghost. Gaue
hee this Commaundement to his Apostles onely ?
haue not also the labours of godly Preachers, which
they haue spread ouer the face of the whole earth,
beene bestowed by the power of this Commandement ? And though the words, as they lie, doe binde
the Ministers of the Word, to endeuour the propa
gation of the Gospell, with all their power; yet not
onely them : For we reade,that poore Tent-makers
and others, haue done much good in spreading the Acts18.3.26.
Gospell, according to their vocations : they also satisfying thus much of Christs precept. Neither I I.
can there be any doubt, but that the Lord that called Abraham into another Countrey, doeth also by
the same holy hand, call you to goe and carry the
Gospell to a Nation that neuer heard of Christ.
The Prophet Zachary, speaking of the daies of the
Gospell,doth shew , that it is a good Vocation for
men to goe abroad, when the number of the children of God doe exceede ; his wordes are these :
Thus saith the Lord of hostes, my cities shall yet be broken
with plenty, the Lord shall yet comfort Zion. Vnto Zach.1.17.
whom agreeth the Prophet Isaiah : The children of
Isa. 49.20.
thy barrennesse shall say againe , in thine eares , the place
C
is
10
Obiection.
Not to enter
other Princes
Territories.
1. Answere.
Conquest lawfull.
C a r i o n.
V
i r g i n e a.
is too strait for me, giue me place, that I may dwell.
Wherefore seeing that, thankes be to God, we are
thronged with multitude ; the Lord of hostes himselfe hath giuen vs the calling of his children to
seeke for roome , and place to dwell in. And heere
might we haue proceeded to the next point , were
it not for one scruple,which some,that thinke themselues to be very wise, do cast in our way ; which is
this in effect. The countrey , they say , is possessed
by owners, that rule, and gouerne it in their owne
right : then with what conscience, and equitie can
we offer to thrust them,by violence,out of their inheritances ? For answere to this obiection : first it
is plaine, that the obiecter supposeth it not lawfull
to inuade the territories of other princes , by force
of sword. This proposition I confesse I neuer was
willing to examine, considering my vocation is priuate. And if Sigismund , the Emperour, said well,
that he merueiled euery man auoided all labors and
difficulties,but onely to rule,which is the most difficult of all other labours ; then to giue sentence of
that, which in ruling is the most waightie, namely,
warres , which are done with the greatest counsell,
must needes bee a labour too heauie for a priuate
mans shoulders. And because my selfe am but
weake eyed in so great a mysterie ; Come foorth ye
great Princes,and Monarkes, of Assyria, Persia, Media, Greece and Rome, with your grauest counsellours,and answere for your facts,in conquering and
subduing nations. For your stories, that were wont
to be read with singular admiration of your forti tude,
B r i t a n n i a.
11
tude, your wisdome, your magnificence,and your
great iustice, are now araigned, and must bee found
guiltie , that through your sides , an action, of
truer honour , then euer you attempted , may bee
wounded. Your strong title of the sword, heeretofore magnified by Historians, Polititians, and Ciuilians, is to our obiecter , but a spiders web , or the
hatching of a Cockatrice his egge. But whatsoeuer
the rest can say for their owne defence , the Lord
himselfe doth say thus much for Cyrus : Thus saith Isay 45.1.2.3 4
the Lord vnto Cyrus, his anointed : whose right hand I
haue holden to subdue nations before him : therefore will
I weaken the loynes of Kings, and open the doores before
him, and the gates shall not be shut : I will goe before thee,
and make the crooked straight : I will breake the brasen
doores, and burst the yron barres. And I will giue thee
the treasures of darkenesse , and the things hid in secret
places ; that thou maist know, that I am the Lord, which
call thee by thy name, euen the God of Israell. For Iacob
my seruants sake, and Iraell mine elect , I will euen call
thee by thy name , and name thee , though thou hast not
knowen me. Then who can blame Cyrus, and keepe
himselfe from blaspheming the almightie. Nay,that
which is more to be trembled at , we must also to
summon vp , and call to the barre , the most holy
worthies of the Scripture : and see if man, or God,
hath any thing to be said for them, why they should
not be condemned as iniust , cruell , and bloudy.
O Iacob , thy blessed bow and sword , with the fruit
whereof thou blessedst thy sonne Ioseph, the staffe of Gene.48.22.
thy gray head, and feeble knees, must be broken and
C 2
burnt :
12
V
i r g i n e a.
burnt : and thou must bee condemned for thy vnlawfull conquest. Worthy Ioshuah, & most worthy
Dauid, with thy cloud of worthies, who hanged vp
so many shields in the house of God , and who
sweetly singeth,that God was his fortitude and buckler,
Psal.18.2.
Iosh.10.24.
must incurre the note of iniustice. Ioshuah , where
is thy vertue , to set thy feete vpon the neckes of
princes , in their owne kingdomes , and call of the
meanest of the people to be thy partners in that indignitie ? Dauid, how vvilt thou answere for the
blood thy sword hath shed? which thou vvast vvont
to praise, There is none to it. Nay thou glory of men,
1.Sam.2 1 . 9 .
and true type of Christ, King Salomon, whose wisedome vvas like vnto the vvisedome of God : teach
vs to say somevvhat in thy defence. (For one graine
of thy wisedome is of more worth then a talent of
their leaden wits , that we are constrained to answere.) Giue an account of his innocencie that said
vnto thee : Girde thee vvith thy sworde vpon thy
Psal.45.2.4.5
thigh, O thou most mightie, -Thy right hand shall teach
thee terrible things, -The people shall fall vnder thee.
Thy father, the sonne of Ishai, made a sinfull prayer
for thee (as our obiecters blaspheme) vvhen he said,
Psal.72.8.
thou shouldest so enlarge thy borders, that Thy dominion should be from sea to sea, and from the riuer to the
end of the land. He vvould haue thee too rigid,when
he saith, That thine enemies should licke the dust. Sure
I am persvvaded that at the onely naming of so
mightie Monarches, and holy conquerors, our obiecters out of their modestie vvill vvith some distinction qualifie their proposition,and say that it is not
lawfull
B r i t a n n i a.
lavvfull, by force to inuade the Territories of other
Princes , that are in quiet possession , in some sort,
and in some cases. I know that the diuell himselfe,
vvith all his distinctions, that euer he made , vvhich
are recorded in scripture, or vvhich he left in hell, in
his cabinet of Abstruse Studies , (locked safe , till hee
found out the Iesuits his trustie secretaries to keepe
them:) I say none of them all can arme a subiect against his prince vvithout sinne. But he that will set
open his schoole in the fantasticall shop of his addle
imagination , (for he will be hissed out of the Vniuersities) and take vpon him to nurture princes , as
petties: telling them that they must not make offensiue warres, if it were to gaine the whole world to
Christ,shall neuer be bidders of guests to the marriage of the kings sonne , who are required to compell
them to come in. And if I might be so bold,I would
faine aske one question of these obiecters,thatcome
dropping out of some Anabaptists Spicery:whether
(if it be vnlawfull to conquere) the crowne sit well
on the head of our most sacred soueraigne? (whose
daye s be as the dayes of heauen O Lord) For by this obiection they shew , that had they power to vntwist
that,which in so many ages hath beene well spunne,
they would write him crownelesse , as farre as hee
hath his title from the conqueror.
O but God forbid, saith the obiecter , that wee
should doe any wrong at all , no not to the diuell.
The rule of Christ is excellent ; Cast out the beame of
thine owne eye, so shalt thou see clearely , to cast the mote
out of thy brothers eye. If you will needs bee casting
C 3
stones,
13
Matth.22.2.
Luke 14.23.
2.No wrong
to bring in
the Gospel.
Matth.7.5.
14
V
i r g i n e a.
stones, Let him beginne first, that is without sinne. But
to the point : our obiecter would not whip a child
to teach him learning and vertue, for feare of doing
wrong. What wrong I pray you did the Apostles
in going about to alter the lawes of nations , euen
against the expresse commandement of the princes,
and to set vp the throne of Christ. If your mouth
be so foule,to charge them with wrong , as the GenTertu. Apol.
contra Gentes. tiles did, we haue more neede to prouide you a medicine for a cankred mouth , and a stinking breath,
then to make you any answere at all.
3. No blood
O but, in entring of other countries , there must
ment to bee
needes be much lamentable effusion of bloud. Cershed.
tainely our obiecter was hatched of some popish
egge; & it may be in a I e s v i t s vault,where they
feede themselues fat , with tormenting innocents.
See-white.
Why is there no remedie , but assoone as we come
The way to
the Church. on land, like Wolues, and Lyons, and Tygres,long
famished,we must teare in peeces,murther,and torment the naturall inhabitants , with cruelties neuer
read,nor heard of before ? must we needs burne millions of them , and cast millions into the sea ? must
we baite them with dogges , that shall eate vp the
mothers with their children ? let such be the practises of the diuell, of Abaddon the sonne of perdition , of
Antichrist and his frie, that is of purple Rome. As
for the professors of the Gospell, they know with
Gene.47.4.
Only a soiour- Iacob and his posteritie,to say to Pharaoh, To soiourne
ning.
in the land are we come ; for thy seruants haue no paIudg.15.3.
Warres onely sture, &c.
They can with Sampson liue peaceably
defensiue.
with the Philistims , till they bee constrained by in
iustice,
Iohn 8.7.
B r i t a n n i a.
iustice, to stand vpon their defence. They can instruct the barbarous princes , as Ioseph did Pharaoh
and his Senators ; and as Daniel did Nabuchad-nezer, &c. And if these obiecters had any braines in
their head, but those which are sicke, they could easily finde a difference betweene a bloudy inuasion,
and the planting of a peaceable Colony, in a waste
country , where the people doe liue but like Deere
in heards, and (no not in this stouping age , of the
gray headed world,ful of yeres and experience)haue
not as yet attained vnto the first modestie that was
in Adam, that knew he was naked,where they know
no God but the diuell,nor sacrifice,but to offer their
men and children vnto Moloch. Can it be a sinne
in Philip, to ioyne himselfe to an Æthiopian charet?
Is onely now the ancient planting of Colonies , so
highly praised among the Romans, and all other nations, so vile and odious among vs, that what is,and
hath bene a vertue in all others, must be sinne in vs?
And if our obiecter bee descended of the Noble
Saxons bloud, Let him take heede lest while he cast
a stone at vs,he wounds his father, that first brought
him in his loynes from forreigne parts into this
happie Isle. But assuring my selfe that these obiecters speake that they thinke not, because they think
that they should not, and if the tearmes of the persons were changed,would praise other nations for
that, which they dislike in vs : I leaue them to tremble before his glorious eyes , that all things are naked and bare vnto , and my selfe will passe to enforce the rest of our Text vpon the consciences of
such
15
Gene.41.25.38
Dan.4.16.
Onely the
Planting of a
Peaceable Colonie.
Gene.3.7,
Acts 8.29.
V
16
such, which I hope to bee the sonnes of
according to promise.
ijº.
His Countrey.
Acts 7.2.
Plin.Nat.Hist.
His kindred.
Gene.9.26.
27.
Iohn 6.68.
His fathers
house.
Iosh.2.4.2.
A
B r i t a n n i a.
i r g i n e a.
Abraham
Bram must get him out, from his country, his kindred,& his fathers house. His Country was called
Mesopotamia, the sweetest, and most fruitful soyle that
was in the worlde. For it lieth betweene the two
great riuers Euphrates and Tygris, which serued not,
as other riuers do in other places, to bring fatnes into the country: but to sweepe away the ranknes,and
foison of the earth, lest with the lustinesse ofthe
ground,the fruit of the earth should rot, or be choked,or|run vp to weed.
His kindred was euery way of the best, and noblest
stocke of the sonnes of Noah; namely the families of
Shem, of whom God said, Bleßed be the God of Shem.
So blessed were his tents, to wit the houses and families of his posterity, that, as of the most happie
thing,it is saide;God perswade Iapheth,and his posteritie (of which we are a parte) to dwell in the tents of
Shem. It seemeth then a matter of as great a perill,
to leaue that kindred,as to leaue the church, and so
saluation it selfe. So saith Peter to Christ : To whome
shall we goe,thou hast the words of eternall life.
His fathers house was worthy for him to haue
continued in.
For though some interpreters think,
that he was commanded to remoue, because his Fathers house was idolatrous,it is not so, It is true indeed, that they were idolaters, because Iosuah doth
say,to the children of Israell : your fathers dwelt beyond the floud in olde time, Terah the Father of Abra
ham
ha m,and the Father of Nachor, and serued other Gods.
But what of this ? Sure it was more through ignorance of the law, then through rebellion and rage.
For when as Terah perceiued, that God was with
his sonne,he left all,without bidding,to go with his
sonne, and had rather put himselfe in the tents of
his sonne,then want the blessing of God.Heereby it
appeareth,that they were a very louing people, one
to the other , & soft harted to obey,when the Lord
did commaund. His father also was very wealthy,
hauing many possessions, much cattell, a numbersome and great family of seruants, All which is nothing obscurely implied in that which was spoken
of Abram: Abram was verie rich in cattell,in siluer &
in gold : and that when Abram heard that his brother
was taken,he armed of them that were borne & brought
vp in his howse,three hundred and eighteene.For it was
not likely but that this wealth,and multitude, came
to him from Father,yet all these must he forsake,
and get him from them, vnlesse they would follow
him and his fortunes (as they say) which they might
if they wold. Othervvise if none vvould goe vvith
him,but that he must be alone; yet must he still follovv the commandement of his God, that saith, Get
thee out from among them.
The reason is giuen by Christ, that also called
sonnes from their fathers, ovvners from their houses,and lands:brethren from their brethren : fathers,
from their children: & husbands from their vviues,
as he saith. He that loueth father or mother more then
me,is not worthy of me.The commandement of God is
D
the
17
Gene.13.2.
Gene.14.14.
I.Reason.
The commandement is of
price, and
must be obeyed.
Matth.10.37.
18
Matth.13.44.
Psal.119•72.
127.
V s e.
Go when God
calleth.
Luke 9.59.60.
61.62.
Reason of not
going answered.
1.England,not
like Mesopotamia.
V
i r g i n e a.
the kingdome of heauen. It is a treasure hid in the field, a
pearle of greate price, vvhich,if hee hath the heart of a
man, that findeth, he vvill sell all that he hath,and buy
it. Heere then vvee see that, vvhere God giueth a
due vocation to spread abroad and inhabit the earth,
neither the loue of the country,be it neuer so fruitefull;the loue ofkindred,bee they neuer so noble and
holy; the loue of a mans fathers house,be the family
neuer so kinde,so rich, so numbersome : no nor the
largenes of possession ought to be any impediment
to keepe vs from obedience.Indeede it is true,that if
any thing could affoord a man a sufficient excuse to
deferre obedience vnto Gods commandement,
of this kinde,it may bee easilie found in one of these
branches. But vvhat Christ saith to his follovvers,is
to be repeated here : Christ saith to one follow mee ,
and the same said,Lord suffer me first to goe and burie my
father : but Christ endureth no delay, for hee presently subioineth a second commandement,Goe thou
and preach the kingdome of God : Then another saide , I
will follow thee Lord ; but let me first goe , and bid them
farewell,which are at mine house : And Iesus saide, No
man that putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back,
is apt to the kingdome of God: Then the commaundement of God must needes bee obeyed, whosoeuer
else be neglected.
I am not ignorant, that many are not willing to
goe abroade and spread the gospell, in this most honorable and christian voyage of the Plantation of
Virginia.Their reasons are diuerse according to their
wits. One saith, England is a sweete country. True
indeede
B r i t a n n i a.
indeede , and the God of glory be blessed , that wheras the country was as wilde a forrest,but nothing so
fruitfull,as Virginia,and the people in their nakednes
did arme themselues in a coate armor of Woad , fetching their Curets and Polderns, from a painters
shop:by the ciuill care of conquerers and planters it
is is now become a very paradise in comparison of
that it was. But how sweete soeuer it be,I am sur, eit
cannot compare with Mesopotamia, where Abram
dwelt. O but, saith another, my kinidred would
not be forsaken. Kindred ? what kindred? Surely thy
kindred is hardly so honourable and blessed, as the
kindred of Abram was. And for any thing that I
can see,since A t h e i s t s and P a p i s t s, haue
gotten out of their serpents holes , and conuersed with men,they haue sowed such cockell among
our wheate,that in many places a man is in no such
perill to be cheated and cosoned,if not murthered &
poisoned, as among his own kindred that are affected that way.Some few,and those very few, are not
willing to leaue their fathers house,where any thing
may bee hoped for after the death of their parents:
but for the most part, the world perceiueth that excepte it be to ioyne in a deadly feude, or some peece
of excellent villanie,the English Prouerbe is true, The
farther from kinne, the neerer to friends. But look seriously into the land, and see whether there bee not
iiust cause,if not a necessity to seek abroad. The people blessed be God, doe swarme in the land,as yong
bees in a hiue in Iune; insomuch that there is very
hardly roome for one man to liue by another. The
D 2
mightier
19
Com.Casoris.
Kindred not
like Abrams.
Causes to
seeke abroad.
20
V
i r g i n e a.
mightier like old strong bees thrust the weaker, as
younger,out of their hiues : Lords of Manors conuert towneships , in which were a hundreth or two
hundreth communicants, to a shepheard & his dog.
The true labouring husbandman,that susteineth the
prince by the plow,who was wont to feede manie
poore,to set many people on worke, and pay twice
as much subsidie and fifteenes to the king, for his
proportion of earth, as his Landlord did for tenne
times as much; that was wont to furnish the church
with Saints,the musters with able persons to fighte
for their soueraigne, is now in many places turned
labourer,and can hardly scape the statute of rogues
and vagrants. The gentleman hath gotten most of
the tillage in his hand; he hath rotten sheepe to sell
at Michaelmas : his sommer fed oxen at Easter: asking no better price for hay,then his beasts,to keepe
that till spring, that they got at grasse: by these
meanes he can keepe his corne til the people sterue,
alvvaies prouided that the poore husbandmen
which are left,and the clothier must buy their seed,
and wool at such a rate, that shall vveare them out
in a very few yeeres. And were it not, that the honest and christian merchant doth often helpe, who
putteth all his estate vpon the prouidence of God,
which they call venturing, to bring corne into the
land , for which he hath many a bitter curse of the
cursed cornmongers , we should finde an extreame
famine in the midst of our greatest plenty. The rich
shop-keeper hath the good honest poore labourer
at such aduantage,that he can grind his facewhen he
pleaseth.
B r i t a n n i a.
pleaseth.The poore mettall man vvorketh his bones
out, and swelteth himselfe in the fire, yet for all his
labour,hauing charge of wife and children, hee can
hardly keepe himselfe from the almes box. Alwaies
prouided that his masters to whom he worketh,will
giue neuer a penny towards his liuing ; but they can
tell of their owne knowledge, that if the poore man
were a good husband, he might liue well : for he receiueth much money in the yeere at their hands, very neere foure pence for euery sixe penny worth of
work. The thoughtfull poore woman,that hath her
small children standing at her knee,and hanging on
her breast ; she worketh with her needle and laboureth with her fingers, her candle goeth not out by
night,she is often deluding the bitternes of her life
with sweete songs, that she singeth to a heauy heart.
Sometimes shee singeth : Haue mercie on mee Lorde,
sometimes Helpe Lord, for good and godly men doe perish and decay : sometimes Iudge and reuenge my cause
O Lord : and many such like : which when a man of
vnderstanding doth heare; he doth with pittie praise
God,that hath giuen such meanes to mocke hunger
with,and to giue patience.I warrant you her songs
want no passion ; she neuer saith,O Lord, but a salte
teare droppeth from her sorrowfull head,a deep sigh
breatheth as a furnace from her aking hart,that weepeth vvith the head for company, vvith teares of
svveetest bloud. And vvhen all the vveeke is ended,
shee can hardly earne salt for her vvater gruell to
feede on vpon the Sunday. Many such svveets are in
England,vvhich I knovv not how better to interpret
D 3
then
21
V
22
i r g i n e a.
then to say the strong olde bees doe beate out the
younger, to svvarme & hiue themselues elsevvhere.
Take the opportunity, good honest labourers
vvhich indeed bring all the hony to the hiue, God
may so blesse you,that the prouerbe may be true of
you, that A May swarme, is worth a kings ransome.
T
H E place whither Abram must goe, is to the land
which the Lord will let him see. A commaundement fit for God, to perswade by no arguments taken from the sweetnes and fruitfulnesse of the place.
Thus doth the Apostle to the Hebrewes , render this
place, By faith Abraham,when he was called,obeyd God,
Heb.11.8.
togoe into a place, which afterwards he should receiue for
inheritance, and he went out , not knowing whither hee
went. The like commandement did the Lord giue to
the children of Israel, when they came out of Egipt:
For they must not chuse their owne way,but follow
the cloudie piller that led them. For at the comNumb.9.23.
maundement of the Lord , they pitched, and at the
.
commaundement of the Lord, they iourneyed,keeping the watch of the Lord , at the commaundement of
the Lord. They iourneyed , sometimes where the
waters were bitter, sometimes where there was no
water, sometimes where the place was full of fierie
Serpents , yet could they not be their own chusers ,
but must follow,where the Lord went before.
For
Rom.11.34.
God in his wayes can endure no counsellour. Hee
will be the shepheard, we the sheepe of his pasture,
1.Reason.
Contented to He will be the potter , wee must content our selues
be Gods creawith the condition of the potters vessell : wherefore
tures.
we
iijº.
B r i t a n n i a.
we are bound, if God commaund , to follow him,
though blindfold. Againe, the Lord doth not tell
him whither he shall goe, to keepe him in suspense,
that the obedience of faith may the more effectually
appeare. For if the Lord had enticed him by arguments taken from the opportunitie and sweetnesse
of the place: how should it be knowen, whether hee
went by the power of the promise of God, or by
some carnall inducement?We know the diuell saith
to God of Iob , Doth Iob feare God for nought , hast
thou not made a hedge about him & about his house? And
we also know what Christ saith to them that followed him. Yee seeke me not , because yee saw the miracles, that is, for any respect they had to his Godhead,
but because ye ate of the loaues and were filled.
From which imputation the Lord would free
his seruant Abraham, whom hee purposed to make
the Father of the faithfull , and giue him for an example to all posteritie. So dealt the Lord in the
wildernesse with the children of Israel : hee let them
see no possibilitie to liue in the world, but susteined
them by extraordinary miracle, giuing them Manna
and Quailes , that they might follow the steps of their
father Abraham : and know , that man liueth not by
bread onely, but by euery word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God, doth man liue. Then here we see, where
God doth commaund,, he is to be obeyed, without
asking of any questions ; Abraham must goe to a
land hee knoweth not whither , because God will
haue it so. He must not say , A Lyon may bee in the
street, lest he find A Serpent bite him at home, as he lea neth
23
II.
Iob 1.9.10.
Ioh. 6. 26.
Deut.8.3.
V s e.
Prou.26.13.
24
V
i r g i n e a.
neth on the wall. How much more, when the land is
discouered, to bee as much better then the place in
which vve liue, as the land of Canaan , was better
then the roaring wildernesse, ought vve to be vvilling to goe, vvhither God calleth ? The children of
Numb.14.7.8.
Israell had vvord by their spies. The land which wee
walked through to search it , is a very good land. If the
Lord loue vs, he will bring vs to this land,and giue it vs,
which is a land that floweth with milke and honie.
Numb. 13.24. Thence they brought a bunch of grapes , and loaded
Deut.1.24,
two men as they carried it on a barre vpon their shoulders: Sure if such motiues as these could not make
them readie to runne to the place , it appeared that
they had neither the feare of God , that vvould not
be perswaded by him ; nor the vvits of reasonable
men,that vvill not respect their owne benefit.What
shall vvee say then to our people , vvhich haue in
them so little edge to follovv their owne thrift. The
land, by the constant report of all that haue seene it,
is a good land, with the fruitfulnesse vvhereof , and
pleasure of the Climate , the plentie of Fish and
Fowle,England, our mistresse,cannot compare, no
not vvhen she is in her greatest pride. It is said of the
land of Canaan, that Isaak sowed in that land , and
Gene.26.12.
found in the same yeere , an hundredfold, by estimation :
and the text addeth, And so the Lord blessed him.
But here is greater matter then so : For, ifI count aright, this land giueth fiue hundred fold at one haruest. For the eares of Wheate, vvhich I haue seene,are
ten in square,and fiftie long : and yet they say , that
commonly this returne is little better then the third
part,
B r i t a n n i a.
25
part,euery stalke bearing, ordinarily three such eares
of Wheate. As for the opportunitie of the place , I
leaue it to the graue Polititian : and for the commodities , let the industrious Merchant speake : but
for foode and raiment, here is inough to be had,for
the labour of mastring and subduing the soile.
The children of Israell that were in the wildernesse,
readie to perish, if God vvithdrew his miraculous
hand, like a stiffenecked people as they were, refused
to goe, fell into a mutiny , and made a commotion,
vpon the newes that the Land had fenced cities , and Num.13.29.
walled townes exceeding great. And because there were
the sonnes of Anak : mightie Giants that were armed
in Brasse, & their speare like a Weauers cloth beam.
For they forgat the God that brought them out of
Egypt , and that made the raging waues of the sea
to stand in heapes, and take the office of strong
walles, that they might easily march through vpon
drie land. They forgat that God was the creator of
the mountaines, whereof one of the least, is stronger then all the sonnes of Anak. They forgat that
God putteth away all the vngodly of the earth like
drosse. But wee should be worse then mad, to bee
discouraged by any such imaginations of this place.
There are but poore Arbors for Castles , base and
homely sheds for vvalled townes. A Mat is their
strongest Portcullis, a naked brest their Target ofbest
proofe: an arrow of reede,on which is no iron,their
most fearefull vveapon of offence , heere is no feare
of nine hundreth iron charets. Their God is the enemie of mankind that seeketh whom hee may deuoure. Iudg. 4.13.
1.Pet. 5.8.
E
A
26
Iohn 8.44.
Zach.12.8.
1.Sam. 18. 7.
Isay. 37. 36.
V
i r g i n e a.
A murtherer from the beginning, that laboureth
the destructiõ of those that serue him most deuoutly. Heere that Scripture hath a full accomplishment ; In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants
of Ierusalem , and he that is feeble among them shall bee
as Dauid, that slew his ten thousand: And the house
of Dauid as Gods, as the Angel of the Lord before them,
that destroyed the most puissant Armie of the
Assyrians, that came against Ierusalem. Wherefore seeing we are contented , when the King doth
presse vs out to warre, to go we know not whither,
nor vnder whom , and can propose no thing vnto
vs but to fight vvith a mightie enemie : Let vs bee
cheerefull to goe to the place,that God will shew vs
to possesse in peace and plentie,a Land more like the
garden of Eden : which the Lord planted, then any
part else of all the earth.
HE Lord
T blessings,
if
doth promise to enrich him with many
he be obedient to his calling. An exDeut. 28 1.
Leuit. 26. 3.
ample of that sweete sanction of the law , vvhen the
Lord doth allure men to keepe it,by the abundance
of his blessings. In this place, the Lord doth promise vnto Abraham , foure most excellent mercies,
of all men of vnderstanding most earnestly desired.
A great Nati- The first thing he promiseth vnto him, is, that The
Lord will make him a great Nation. A thing which in
on.
the beginning of the Plantation of the vvorld,by all
men, vvas principally desired, vvith the greatest longing. Out of this desire, arose the taking of many
vviues, vvhereas God did make but one. Hence also
Mal. 2. 15.
rose
iiijº.
B r i t a n n i a.
rose a reproch vnto the barren, though the Lord
had shut vp the wombe. This appeareth by Leah,
who said when she bare a sonne, Now therefore my
husband will loue me. And againe, Now will my husband keepe me companie, because I haue borne him three
sonnes. It appeareth also by the storie of Hannah , of
whom it is said, her aduersary vexed her sore, w h i ch
was her husbands other wife, for she vpraided her,
because the Lord had made her barren. It appeareth
also, that euen to the time of the Gospel , it was a
reproch to a woman if she were barren, as Elizabeth
said when shee conceiued with child. Thus hath the
Lord dealt with me, in the dayes when he looked on mee,
to take from me my rebuke among men. Yea it was in
those dayes a speech, Cursed bee the barren that beareth not, and the breasts that giue not sucke. No maruaile then,if it were an argument very powerfull to
perswade Abraham to goe vnder this condition :
Especially when Abraham was full of yeeres , elder
then his father was,when he begat him. And also
his wife was well stroken in yeeres, in so much, that
it ceased to be with her after the manner of vvomen.
And to let it appeare that hee vvas exceedingly affected vvith a desire to multiplie and encrease,when
God came to him and comforted him, Thus, Fe a r e
not Abraham, I am thy buckler, and thine exceeding
great reward ; he maketh this answere to God: W h a t
wilt thou giue me (for the Text doth say hee was exceeding rich) seeing I goe childlesse : As if he had said,
that he preferred the blessing of multiplication before all the vvorld beside. Now heere dooth God
promise
E 2
27
Gene 29. 32.
1.Sam.1. 6.
Luke 1.26.
Gene. 12.4.
Gene. 18.11.
Gene. 15.1.2.
28
V
i r g i n e a.
promise him, vpon his obedience, not only to giue
him a child, or that he shall beget twelue princes, as it is
said of Ismael; but he will make him a great Nation;
a Nation, that, not man, but God calleth Great:
that is, exceeding great. For imprinting of vvhich
Gene.13.16.
Gene.15.5.
promise in the heart of Abraham, he calleth him to
Heb.11.12.
see the innumerable starres of the skie, the infinite
sands by the sea, and the motes of the dust of the
earth , which hee will make fit comparisons to expresse the greatnesse of this nation. Then seeing,
Answere to
the Obiection whatsoeuer was promised to Abraham ; is also proof being exmised to all that are ofhis faith and obedience ; here
tinguished.
is an answere to such, as obiect they are loth to goe
from home ; because they know not what shall become of them. For if they once get into an other
Countrey, they thinke there is an end of them , and
all theirs. This the Lord answereth; Not so, but obey the commandement, And God will open the
barren wombe, and make her to dwell with a family,
Psal. 113. 9.
and to be a ioyfull mother of children. Prayse the Lord.
Gene. 32. 10.
Iacob thus prayeth God, with my staffe came I ouer
this Iorden,and now haue I gotten two bands.
God will
The second thing vvhich the Lord doth promise
blesse him.
vnto Abram, is, that He will blesse him, Him I say and
the nation that shal come of him. What is meant by
this blessing the Patriarke Isake doth, in part, make
plaine, vvhen hee disposeth of this blessing to Iacob
vvhich his Father Abram had of God,and left to him.
Gene. 27. 28.
His vvords are these. God giue thee of the dew of heauen, and the fatnes of the earth,and plenty of wheat and
wine, Let people be thy seruants; and nations bow vnto
thee,
Gene.17.20.
B r i t a n n i a.
thee, be thou Lord ouer thy brethren, and let thy mothers
children honor thee. In summe he blesseth him vvith
plenty and authoritie. Hovvbeit these things vvere
but a parte of the blessing; the remainder of this
blessing vvhich indeede is most excellent,
conteynneth the substance,vvhereofthose temporall blessings
vvere but the type and shadovv, and as it vvere the
Sacraments. When Moses doth say, My doctrine
shall droppe as the rai ne , and my speech shall still as the
dew, as the showers vpon the hearbs, and as the greate
raine vpon the grasse. It is plaine that the devv is but
the type ofthe vvorde ofGod and his gratious spirit, that doth accompanye it, as all the promises
vvhich vvere deliuered in a temporall Phrase had a
spirituall sence, To which purpose is that in the Epistle to the Hebrewes, By faith Abraham abode in the
land of promise, as in a strange countreye, for hee looked for a City hauing a foundation, whose builder and
maker is God, that is an heauenly one, In this blessing
then are there all good things, hauing the promise of
the life present,and of that which is to come,for this is the
profit,is got by godlines. So vvhen then children of Israell came out of Egypt they came forth riche, vvith
siluer and golde;and vvith greate substance, as the
Lord had shevved vnto Abram before. But that vvas
not all, for the Lord sent his angell to accompany
them, raysed them vp Prophets of their brethren, erected his tabernacle among them, yea saith saint
Paule They dranke of the spirituall rocke that followed
them,and the rock was Chrsit.
And heere is an answvver to a second obiection, of
E 3
such
29
Deut. 32. 2.
Heb.11.9 10.16
1.Tim. 4. 8.
Exod.12.3 5.
Gene. 15.14.
Deut. 18.15.
Num 11. 26 27
1.Cor.10.4.
Answere to
the Obiection
of loosing the
blessing of
God.
30
V
i r g i n e a.
such as vvill not goe abroad , for feare ofloosing the
blessing of God, diuers are the difficulties into
which a man is cast when hee liueth among barbarous people. Sure hee cannot haue the blessing of
God,that is mingled among the heathen. Hee must lose
the preaching of the word of God,and the purity of
the Sacraments,thus is he vndone in bodie & soule.
To this the Lord replieth,that to him that doth wilfully with the breach of Gods commandement run
into tentation,the Lord doth bring vpon him the
curse that Dauid forewarneth his sonne of, If thou
1.Chron. 28.9.
forsake him,hee will cast thee off for euer. But if a man
leaue his Country at Gods commandment,the blessing of the Lord shall euer waite vpon him to feede
his body and sanctifie his soule. The trueth is ; that
none doe so shine in pietie as those that feare God
& are out of their Countrie. We neuer read ofsuch
a blessing of men, with constancie and deliuerance,
in their owne Countrie, as we find ofsome abroad.
Dan.21.25.
Where did Sidrach, Misach, and Abednago, stand
for their faith and were deliuered out of the fierie
Ouen into which they were cast,because they would
not offend God,but among the Babilonians? Where
Dan. 6.16.
did Daniel shew his constancie in prayer, and found
deliuerance from the Lyons denne, but among the
Gentiles? Stand fast then in the Faith, and you shal
see the blessings of God redoubled vpon you more,
being in a strange Contry , then you were able to
discerne at home.
The third blessing vpon Abraham, is, that God
A great name.
will make him a great name. This is a blessing of that
kinde,
B r i t a n n i a.
kinde, as men are exceedingly ambitious of. No
meruaile, when God and man doth commend it
vnto the world, as a thing of price; A good name ,
(saith Salomon)is better then a costly oyntment, and is
to bee chosen aboue great riches. Hereupon the Scripture hath recorded good men; and the Epistle to the
Hebrews giueth the reason of it , which it rendreth
thus, All these, through faith, obtained a good re
port. So is Dauid registred for a worthie, and so are
all his worthies recorded by the holy Ghost, to stirre
vp other ages to imitate their vertues,that they may
inherit their prayses, For praise for vertue is a blessed thing, which Christ himselfe delighted in, His
fame was spread abroad throughout all the land:
and of the fame of the Apostles and such as prea
ched the word of God, Dauid saith, which also S.
Paul doth cite and thus render to their praise. Their
sound went out through all the earth;and their words into the ends of the world. This swift flying and loud
sounding fame, doeth the Lord promise shall bee
spread abroad of Abram,if hee will obey God and
forsake his country. A thing which proued true: for
all the rest of the Scriptures , to the end of the Bible
hath this onely subiect, namely the praise of Abram.
It is certaine that a godly man hath neuer that great
name at home, as abroad. Christ saith truely in the
Particular of a Prophet, which is also true of euery
vertuous man, A Prophet is not without honour, saue in
his owne Country,and in his owne house. And so here is
an answere to a third obiection, which some doe
make:What should a man do abroad? A man would
willing
31
Eccles. 7.3.
Prou.22.1.
Heb.11.39.
1.Chron.11.
Psal. 19.3.
Rom.10.18.
Matth. 13. 57.
Answere to
the Obiection
oflosse of memorie.
32
1.King.10.27.
A blessing.
V
i r g i n e a.
willingly keepe the poore reputation and respect he
hath. If I go out of my Country, I shall be but swallowed vp among strangers, my memories will bee
sooner rotten abroad, though I liue; then if I were
long laide in my graue at home. The Lord answereth this obiection thus. Feare not Abram,I will bee
thine exceeding great rewarde, I will by thee doe so
greate things in a strange place,that thy name shall
be remembred, as my name,which I will put vpon
thee. Sure it is very true, that manie a man,while he
staieth at home,liueth in obscuritie, as in the darkest
night,though his vertues and worth deserue better
respect. For at home what can bee a mans regarde,
where there be millions of his rank,though not better deseruing,yet better fauoured.Get abroad where
vertue is skant, and there, by the aduancing of thy
wisdome and vertue, thou shalt bee more eminent
and famous in a yeare, then at home halfe of thy
ranke shall bee all their daies : hidden vertue is neglected, but abroade it is magnified, At home bee
thou a right good man, thou canst not be seene, for
thou art either ouertopt,or so many waies equalled,
that thou art like Gold in Salomons time, vvhich
vvas esteemed no better then stones, or like Cedars
that vvere but like vvild figge trees. Thy vvay then
to makethe vvorld ring of they vertue, to thy praise
among the good,and to the terror of those that are
euill, is to go abroad vvhen God calleth thee.
The fourth blessing is that he shall be A blessing.
The speech hath relation to the esteeme that other
men giue ; For so doe wee often reade the phrase in
the
B r i t a n n i a.
the Scripture,where it euer doth import so good a
reputation among others, that they hold themselues blessed for his company. In that sense the
prophet Isaiah vseth the worde in this sentence: In
that day shall Israell be a third with Egypt and Ashur,
euen a blessing in the mids of the land. And the Prophet Zacharie thus, It shall come to passe, that as yee
were a curse among the heathen, O house of Iudah, and
house of Israel, so will I deliuer you, and ye shall bee a
blessing. But the speech hath more in it then so ;
namely that whereas, The time of ignorance God regarded not: but that he bestowed those blessings vpon the barbarons people, by the hand of that generall prouidence whereby he maketh his Sunne to shine
on the euill,& the good,and sendeth raine on the iust and
vniust : now the Lord shall bestow all his blessings
vpon the land through Abram : as if the Oliue trees of
Gods graces did drop through him, as through a
golden pipe, vpon them. A greate blessing to Abram
who herein should be a type of Christ. For as of his
fullnes all receiue, so of Abram , the nations should
receiue grace for grace. And so heere is an answer
to a fourth obiection of them that say, what should
a man do out of his country ? He shall bee but a hissing and a gasing stocke, and a curse to those among
whom he is a stranger. Besides if hee will haue any
good, he must seeke for pearles in a dunghill, hee
must lick his hony off from the thorne, and worke
his butter out of the fire. Vnto this obiection the
Lord answereth ; Abram feare not,for none of these
things shall befall. For on the contrary I wil encline
F
the
33
Isai. 19.24.
Zach. 8. 13.
Acts 17.30.
Matth. 5.45.
Zach. 4.12.
Answere of
being abhorred.
34
Gene. 26.28.
Gene.41.3 8.
and 40.
Rom.4.23.
V
i r g i n e a.
the heart of thy strangers so to respect thee, that
they shall holde thee to bee the onely blessing that
euer came among them, because thou shalt verie
sensibly bring many blessings vnto them. When
Isack the sonne of Abram,came to Abimelech,though
the Philistines enuied him for his wealth : yet Abimelech the King came to him with his friends and
captaines of his armye,and said, Wee haue certainely
seene that the Lord is with thee: and we thought,let there
nowbe an oath between vs, and let vs make a couenant
with thee,Thou now the blessed of the Lord,do this. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, said to his seruants of Ioseph,can we
find such a man as this, in whom is the spirit of God. He
said also to Iospeh, Thou shalt be ouer mine house, and at
thy word shall all my people bee armed. Thus Abraham
was knowen to be a blessing. Now what the Lord
promised to Abraham,was also promised to al those
that are of the same faith and obedience with him.
Then this blessing,ofbeing a blessing,belongeth vnthose which atGods commandement doe Get them
out of their Country. When a man of worth is among many men of like worth, he is accounted rather a curse then a blessing,such is the corruption of
flesh and bloud,infected with enuy and with pride.If
any good come to any land by reason of any good
man, yet is there such wrestling for the garland, that
he that hath the most friends, will set the better leg
before,and not onely get the thanks that is due to another;but also,as Iacob got the start of Esau,in vertue, so will Esau trip vp the heeles of Iacob by his
power,if God keepe him not. Nay Esau must be ac
know-
B r i t a n n i a.
knowledged to haue an Angels face, for winking at
his brother;that windeth himselfe out of his companie as cleanly as hee can. But when a man commeth abroad,where the word of God and his feare
is precious, then euery vertue of worth shall haue
this Respond of the Idiots and Barbarians , out of question God is in these men. Then can there no blessing
fall extraordinarily, but all men know for whose
sake it is, namely for such as God hath made a blessing.
Out of these arguments , by which God inticed
Abram to goe out of his Country,such as goe to a
Christian Plantation may gather many blessed lessons. God will make him a greate nation. Then must
Abrams posteritie keepe them to themselues. They
may not marry nor giue in marriage to the heathen,
that are vncircumcised. And this is so plaine, that
out of this foundation arose the law of marriage aamong themselues. The breaking of this rule, may
breake the neck of all good successe of this voyage,
whereas by keeping the feare of God, the Planters
in shorte time,by the blessing ofGod,may grow into a nation formidable to all the enemies of Christ,
and bee the praise of that part of the world , for so
strong a hand to bee ioyned with the people here
that feare God.
Another thing also is to bee marked out of this
place,mamelie,that to grow into a great nation is
a very great blessing of God. Then are they but Atheists , that hold a great family of children to bee a
heauie and sore charge : and they blaspheme the
F 2
know
35
1.Cor.14.25.
V s e I.
Marrie not
with Infidels.
I I.
A great Nation Gods blessing.
36
Par.Vrsperg.
I I I.
Blesse his
Iourney.
Iohn 8.56.
Iosh. 1.5.
V
i r g i n e a.
knovv not what , that wish God had their children, for they could spare them well enough . But
especially the sonne of perdition, that body of Poperie
is by this Text made abhominable, that once wrote
to the Lords of the Counsell ofthis Land, that Poperie would much profit the Land , because by the
single life of Priests and Nunnes, and Monkes, and
Friers, the Common-wealth should not be so charged with multitude of children. They fitly say, not
charged;but they say not,that lesse children shallbe
gotten. For when as one fishponde, a thousand
yeares agoe,could affoorde more then sixe thousand
infants heads,so long before the abstruse studies came
from hell into the hands of Iesuites, what shall wee
thinke of these latter daies? But to rake no further
into the stinking kennell, I must tell them to their
teeth, that when they say the kingdome is better for
the smallnes of the number of the subiects,or is not
the better for being a great nation,that they doe like
their father the diuell, giue God the lie.
Whereas God doeth promise to blesse him in
his Iourney, as hee did indeede , giuing him the gift
of a Prophet to teach , of a Priest to pray, of a King
to rule, of plentie in his Temporall estate, and Ioye
in seeing Christ the Sauiour of his soule ; here may
such as transplant at Gods commandement, bee assured of that promse of God, I will not leaue thee,nor
forsake thee ; but as God saith to Ioshuah , as I was
with Moses so will I be with thee : so God saith to
them, as I was with Abraham,so will I be with you.
I will blesse you , to wit, with the blessings of this life
and
B r i t a n n i a.
and of the kingdome of heauen.
But further if you will haue Abrams blessing, you
must doe your diligence to walke in those wayes,
by which the Lord doeth giue his blessings. You
must not with Idlenesse, inforce God to worke myracles of mercie on the wilfully sinfull. You must
bee diligent to heare the word of God , reuerent in
beleeuing and receiuing of it,fruitfull in the Christian practice of it, that the blessing of God may come
vpon you. God can raise children vnto Abraham of
the very stones, and cast you away if you cast him off.
In that the Lord doeth promise Abraham to make
him a great Name, know that it is a blessed thing to
be well spoken of. This will God bring vpon the
obedient. But if you disobey, you will but make
the eares of them to tingle, that heare of you. And
as we are in continuall expectation ofsome honourable effect, if you continue in the faith : so will you
bring a confusion vpon your selues , and a shame
vpon your Nation, if you sticke not fast to God,and
his blessed commaundements.
And lastly , whereas God doth promise, that Abram shall be a blessing , you must know it you dutie to walke wisely towards those that are without,redeeming the time, because the dayes are euill. The dayes
are euill indeed, in that continent.
Then how tender ought your care to be, to gaine
the reputation of a blessing among this people. Let
them see,that he that came before , was but Satan
whom they themselues doe serue, that had transformed himselfe into an Angell of light ; and that they were
F 3 Satans
37
I I I I.
Matth.3.9.
V.
A good Name
V I.
Ephe.5.15.16.
2.Cor 11.13.14
38
Rom.13.13.
Matth.5.16.
Gal 6.10.
Ephe.4.27.
Vº.
V
i r g i n e a.
Satans ministers, that transformed themselues into the
Apostles of Christ. But walke you honestly as in the day,
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your
good workes, and glorifie you father which is in heauen.
While we haue time, let vs doe good to all men ; yet giue
no place to the diuell. So the blessing of God shall be
vpon vs, and we shall be a blessing wheresoeuer we
goe. And still remember that,as the diuels children
will needs be a curse, so the sonnes of Abraham will
alwayes labour to be a sweete blessing , where euer
they come. And these were the arguments that
concerned Abraham and his people, wee must novv
proceed also to speake of such arguments that concerned others.
doth deale wonderfully with him in reTHspectE of Lord
others , When he is departed from his
owne Countrie. For first the Lord will blesse them
that blesse him. To blesse, in this place, is by word
and deed to seeke the prosperitie of any. The Lord
then doth promise to make all his blessings goe before them, that doe, in any manner, make their blessings goe before his seruants. To this purpose is it,
which the Prophet Dauid hath, Pray for the peace of
Psal.122.6.
Ierusalem , Let them prosper that loue thee. And that
of Christ. He that receiueth a Prophet , in the name of
Matt.10.41.42 a Prophet, shall receiue a Prophets reward ; and hee that
receiueth a righteous man , in the name of a righteous
man, shall receiue the reward of a righteous man. And
whosoeuer shall giue to one of these little ones , to drinke,
a cup of cold water onely, in the name of a Disciple. Vere
ly
B r i t a n n i a.
ly I say vnto you, he shall not loose his reward. Vpon this
blessing of God was it that Dauid said to his sonne
Salomon. Shew kindnes vnto the sonnes of Barzillai the
Gileadite,- for so they came to me,when I fled frõ Absolom thy brother. And as the Lord doth blesse them
that loue his children, with his blessings of this life,
so doth he blesse them at last with the kingdome of
heauen. For thus doth our Sauiour Christ giue his
sentence ; Come ye blessed of my father , take the inheritance of the kingdome prepared for you , from the beginning of the world : For I was an hungred,and ye gaue me
meat,&c. Which afterwards he doth thus explaine,
Verely I say vnto you, in as much as ye haue done it to one
of the least of these my brethren ye haue done it to me.But
here we must vnderstand, that when he saith , I will
blesse them that blesse thee , the word thee , did not
signifie personall Abraham ; but Abraham and all
his posteritie, which were in his loynes , and were
to be that great Nation, that the Lord promised to
make of him. And this, the Foxe Balam knew very
well, when speaking of Iacob, and the habitation of
Israel, He citeth this Text : Blessed is hee that blesseth
thee. Laban was blessed for Iacobs sake , and the keeper of the prison , with his whole charge,was blessed because of Ioseph. The midwiues , that did spare
the children of the Israelites , and did not kill them,
according to the commaundement of Pharaoh the
king, were also blessed : which the Scripture doth
thus record, God therfore prospered the widowes. And
againe, And because the widowes feared God, therefore
he made them houses. Rahab also, that harboured and
hid
39
1.King.2.7.
Matth.25.34.
Num.24.5.3.
Gene.30.27.
and 39 2 3.
Exod.1.17.20.
21.
40
Ios.2.14. & 6.
25.
Mat.1.5.
Deut.28.
Leuit.26.
Mat.18.6.
Gen.12 15.12.
Gen.20.3.18.
Ge.19.5.12.24.
Exod.1.&c.
Reason, communion with
God.
Gen.17.7.
Zach.2.8.
V
i r g i n e a.
hid the Lords spies , found the blessing that Ioshuah
saued her, and her fathers houshold, and all that she had,
and she dwelt in Israel, as it seemeth, married to Salmon, and so also from her came Christ.
To curse, in this place, doth signifie all kind of afflictions : as appeareth by the lawe of God. And so
the meaning is , that the Lord will spend all his
plagues vpon such as doe bring any affliction vpon
Abraham, yea the Lord will reuenge them in his
wrath. So saith the Lord Iesus Christ , He that shall
offend one of these little ones, that beleeue in me , it were
better for him, that a milstone were hanged about his
necke : and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Let Pharaoh tell how well he sped for taking Abrahams wife into his house , The Text saith , The Lord
plagued Pharaoh with great plagues ; because of Sarai Abrahams wife. Let Abimelech tell , how much better
he faired for the like pranke. But Sodom will neuer
be forgotten, that would abuse strangers. And Egypt is hanged vp a table , in all mens eyes , to let
them see , that the Lord hath innumerable fearefull
plagues, to spend vpon them that will deale craftily,
and cruelly with his people ; and not suffer them to
serue the Lord. The reason hereof is, that God, to
him that receiueth his couenant, doth bind himselfe
to be his God, and the God of his seede. And thus the
Prophet Zacharie bringing foorth - God expressing
his meaning to be, that there is so strickt an Vnion,
betweene God and his people, that what is done to
his seruants , hee taketh as done to himselfe ; His
words be these,He that toucheth you,toucheth the apple
of
B r i t a n n i a.
of mine eye. To this purpose is that of our Sauiour
Christ, He that receiueth you,receiueth me : and he that
receiueth me,receiueth him that sent me.
And againe,
He that despiseth you,despiseth me : and he that despiseth
me, despiseth him that sent me. And now, seeing the
respect of blessing or cursing , which falleth vpon
Abraham and his posteritie,doth fall vpon God,then
consider what God saith for himselfe. Them that honour me, I will honour : and they that despise me,shall be
despised. And this doth Dauid acknowledge in God,
With the godly, thou wilt shew thy selfe godly : with the
vpright,thou wilt shew thy selfe vpright : with the pure,
thou wilt shew thy selfe pure : and with the froward,thou
wilt shew they selfe froward.
It is then to bee obserued , that godly men, that
feare God, where euer they goe by Gods vocation,
they shall find friends , and such as shall blesse them.
He made those that led them away captiue to pitie them.
Iospeh, and Daniel found more honour abroad, then
their Princes had at home. Ester and Mordecai,found
more fauour at Shusan , then many of their betters
found at Ierusalem. Hee that raised vp those godly
men friends abroad, will also prouide for you abroad,if ye continue his faithfull seruants, as Abram
did. And further, here wee see, that such as loue
Gods people shall prosper ; though they be but heathen . This may giue warrantie vnto our consciences, to accept of fauour and blessings , euen of
the Gentiles : and also to hold a league and concurrence, euen with the well affected Heathen , that
God hath stirred vp,to be the means of his Blessings
G
vnto
41
Matth.10.
Luke10.16.
1.Sam.2.30.
Psal.18.25.26
V s e. I.
Godly men
find friends.
I I.
The friends
of godly men
prosper.
42
V
i r g i n e a.
vnto vs. So is it said to Abram, When he had occasion to rescue his brother Lot from Chedor-Laomer,
Gen.14.13.
Then came one that escaped,and told Abram the Ebrew,
which dwelt in the plaine of Mamre, the Amorite, brother to Eshcol, and brother to Aner, which were confederate with Abram. And also we may secure our
selues, in the association of such ; that God will not
kill vs for their sakes : but on the contrary , God will
blesse them for our sakes.
I I I.
Againe, this text doth teach vs thus much , that
They must
in
a
strange Countrey, we must looke for enemies ;
looke for enemies.
euen cursing enemies , vnder whose tongues is the
poyson of Aspes , and whose right hand is a right
hand of iniquitie. Balaam, that had a witches tongue
Io sh 13 22.
Num.22.6.
in his head,was sent for to curse Israel,by Balak, that
knew he had a pestilent tongue. The seed of the diuel
Gen 3.15.
will be spighting and biting , doe what a man can.
Iohn 16.33.
This our Sauiour foretelleth to his holy Apostles,
In the world you shall haue trouble. A thing which if
the children of Israel had knowen as they ought,
they would neuer haue refused to enter the land
which God commanded them to possesse : because
there were cursing and killing enemies , no better
then Canibals. Bee not then discouraged, though
you light on enemies:for that did God foretell vnto
Abram, that hee and his seed must find. Rather bee
strong, and of good courage : because the Lord is
with you; and with them,but an arme of flesh.
I I I I•
Lastly , our text doth tell vs , that he will curse
Their enemies shall be them that curse Abram, This the witch Balaam knew
cursed.
that if any would open his mouth to curse the peo
ple
B r i t a n n i a.
ple of God , hee should bee cursed himselfe: for the
curse should returne vnto him, as Water into his
bowels, and oyle into his bones. And generally, they
shall come vnto shame and confusion , as many as
haue euill will at Ziion. Here then is a warrant that
where godly men are constrained to encounter
with cursers, such as are the Priests of the Gentiles;
it is Gods ordinance to bring a curse vpon them ,
and to kill them : as the children of Israel did Balam.
Here is also a promise, that , if we keepe our selues
to Abrams faith and obedience, God will bring a
curse vpon all our enemies. The Prophet Zacharie
hath many excellent speeches, to expresse this by :
The Lord, saith he, will make Ierusalem a cup of poyson,
vnto all the people in the siege of Ierusalem. Ierusalem
shall bee a heauie stone for all people : all that lift at it,
shall be torne ; though all the earth be gathered together
against it. Againe, the princes of Iuda shall bee as coles
of fire among wood , and like the firebrand in the sheafe,
and they shall deuoure all people round about, on the right
hand, and on the left. These things spake the Prophet
of these victorious dayes of the Gospell.I hope out
of these words thus generally deliuered , euery true
hearted Protestant , can frame out an answere vnto
the obiection,that is thought much to impeach this
Plantation in V i r g i n i a. The perill, say the
obiecters, is great by the Papists that shall come on
the backe of vs. What Papists doe you feare ? the
Princes ? Sure, such as are in aliance with our Nation , will thinke other thoughts,and take better aduice. But as for the popish Church,an vnruly beast,
G 2
exempt
43
Psal.109.17.
Iosh 13.22.
Zach.12.2.
&c.
44
V
i r g i n e a.
exempt from all good gouernment , Ciuill and Diuine, onely adoring him , that hath exalted himselfe
aboue all that is called God, or that is worshipped, it may
be they, like the daughters of Salomons horsleaches,
Prou.30.14.15.
will cry , Giue, giue , more blood , and yet more blood.
And yet, a man would thinke,they were glutted beReue.18.24.
fore this time of day , For in her may be found the blood
of the Prophets and of the Saints,and of A l l that were
slaine vpon the earth. But you will say , now they be
so well fleshed, they will haue more blood. To this
first our text answereth in general, neuer feare them:
they come to curse with Bell , Booke and Candle,
and the Diuell and all : but remember this , God will
curse them that curse Abram. But say you , they are
such terrible beasts , as that the professors of the
Gospell must needes be afraid of them. Indeed their
Reue. 8.23.
perill was great , while their Inchauntments were in
Exod.9.11.
force. Iannes and Iambres withstood Moyses, till the
Plague of the Scab fell vpon them , and then they
were able to stand before Moyses no longer. So they
Reue.16.2.
iuggled, and did many strange tricks, and much mischiefe,till the Plague of the Scab light vpon them at
Naples,more then an hundred yeere agoe: but since,
though their industrie hath bene nothing inferior
Iob 1.8.
to the diuels, that came from compassing of the earth,
to and fro; yet they may cast a wofull accompt : For
they find in the totall , how many Kingdomes they
haue lost , and doe daily lose ; how many battailes
they haue fought,in all which to the Protestants, as
the Cananites, would proue to the Isralites in CaNumb.14.9.
lebs iudgement,so haue they bene,euen Bread for vs.
Aske
B r i t a n n i a.
45
Aske what is become of those imperiall armies,that
went into Boeme, against the Hussites , in the time
of Sigismund the Emperour : and know, what is become of their Armour : whether it armed not the
Hussites that wanted? Aske what is become of the
many shippes that came into the Narrow seas in
the yeere 1588 ? I am sure much of their Ordinance
furnished the Netherlanders. Will they come to
you? Sure G O D that made Israel rich of the
spoiles of Egypt, can by his prouidence make them
furnish you with shippes, with Munition , with Victuall, with money : let this be your hope. But feare
not their feares. Babilon, saith the Angell, is fallen ; Reue.14.& 18
neuer to rise againe : sing Hallelu-iah, and you shall Reue.19.3.
see her smoake ascend for euermore. No, no , they
shall preuaile no more, for their madnes is made eui- 1.Tim.3.8.
dent. They haue another chare to doe, I hope, will
make them scratch where it itcheth not. Thinke ye
that it is possible for Princes , whose treasure is exhausted, and honour impeached , by their inchaunments, not to require satisfaction for these wrongs?
and , to that purpose , pull all their Mammon from
vnder the Altars ? I am perswaded,the Armour
they haue in the roufes of their Churches, will one
day helpe to arme a company of good fellowes,that
will come to Church,it may bee vnder pretence of
hearing a Masse,but will depart with good luggage,
of siluer and gold, and pearle, and such like , that is
there ready gathered to their hands.
Wherefore
feare God,and of all others,there lieth the least feare
to be looked for from them. The onely perill is in
G 3
offen-
46
V
i r g i n e a.
offendingGod,and taking of Papists in to your company : if once they come creeping into your houses,
then looke for mischiefe : if treason or poyson bee
of any force : know them all to be very Assasines, of
all men to be abhorred. But hope in God that hee,
that hath sent you abroad , will also send you such
gouernours , as will cast out the leauen out of your
houses : to whom I need say little , because I know
they need not be nurtured by me.
Vjº.
shall all the families of the earth bee blessed.
I NByAbram
Abram, is ment, as before, Abraham, as in his
loynes are many nations. For that which is heere
spoken of Abram,is also spoken of Iacob,in this manner. In thee , and in thy seed,shall all the families of the
earth be blessed.
It is true that in Abraham and his
Gen.28.14.
Children,were many men blessed : as appeareth in
the Scripture,where they haue drawne many strangers to serue God. Howbeit the principall blessing
is ascribed to Christ, who by excellencie is called
Thy seede ; as S. Paule doth very notably obserue,
Gal.3.16.
when he saith, Hee saith not,and to thy seedes, as speaking of many, but, And to thy seed, as of one, which is
Christ. By the families of the earth are vnderstood
all those nations, which arose from the families of
Gen.10.32.
the sonnes of Noah,after their generations among their
people; for out of these were the nations diuided in the
earth after the flood : and that which is heere rendred
families , afterward is called Nations in the speech of
the Lord of Abraham, All the nations of the earth shall
Gen.18.18.&
be blessed in him. S. Paul rendreth it thus, in thee shall
22.18.
all
B r i t a n n i a.
all the Gentiles be blessed. By blessing in this place, seeing the seed is Christ,and the word, Thee, did so far
point out Abraham,as it had relation to Christ in his
loynes, of force it must signifie that blessednesse,
which Christ doth bring vnto men. Which the Angel and a multitude of heauenly souldiers, do comprehend in their sweete song of praising God, when
they said. Glorie be to God on high , and Peace on earth,
and towards men good will. Then the speech,all put together,is this, that Abraham must get him out of his
Countrie: that he may begin that, which God, by
him and his seed,will accomplish in due time:namely that all nations may embrace the gospel of Christ
vnto their saluation. An excellent argument, and of
singular force,to perswade not only Abram, but all
his Children according to the faith,to fly, if it were
possible,ouer the moutaines,about so greate an errand. O with what Comfort may a man come before the Lord, with this account of his talent. Behold I am heere,& the childre which God hath geuen me.
It would neuer grieue S Paule to go from Cilicia,to
present a Church at Corinth, a pure Virgin to Christ.
But stay, saith one,you run too fast without good
ground: you seeme to encline to the Millenaries, or
such as looke for the gospell to be spread ouer all the
world. You must know that is done manie a faire
yeare agoe, that we need not looke for a new Reuolution of that . It were safer to tremble at the last
iudgement, whose trumpet is euer sounding in our
eares : Arise from the dead and come to iudgement. To
this I answere that no preiudicate opinion is a iust
condem-
47
Gal.3.8.
Luk.2.14.
2.Cor.11.2.
Obiection.
The last iudgment at hand.
Answere.
48
V
i r g i n e a.
condemnation to the trueth, nor any doctrine out
of Bookes that are Apocripha, can make a wise man
depart from a doctrine of the Canonicall Scriptures.
Greg.lib. Dialo. It is true that Gregories credit was wont to bee great
in the times that men knew no better , who confi
dently affirmed the iudgement to bee at hand ; but
besides the confutation of a thousand yeares, which
haue bin since hee so affirmed,the pregnant & cleere
Scripture confoundeth the proud coniecture of him
and his followers. And this doth also appeare by
Maluenda de
the Apostasie of some Papists that in their bookes
Antichristo.
lately Printed at Rome, haue departed from the sentence of so great a Pope, and graue Doctor of the
Church,telling vs plainely that the gospell must be
preached vniuersally through the world before the
last Iudgement. But neither by their authority, nor
arguments,but by the force of such Texts as cannot
be deluded,do I affirme, That all the Nations of the
world shall be blessed in Christ. They that mince and
pare this Text, that they make it as sore as the SheGene.34.25.
Psal.19.3.
chamits were with their circumcision,say,that,take aRom.10.18.
way the ouerlashing hyperbole, and, Their sound is
gone out into all the world, will serue the turne. A simple blessing God knoweth and little differeth from
The sauor of death vnto death. If they receaue you not,
2.Cor.2.16.
(saith Christ,) shake off the dust of your feete. Truely, I
say vnto yon, it shall be easier for the land of Sodom and
Matth.10.14. Gomorrah in the day of Iudgement, then for that Citie,
howsoeuer they heard the sound of the worde of
God. This stumbling blocke,fewe wise men will say
was this Blessednesse promised to Abram.
The
B r i t a n n i a.
49
The Iewes hunt counter as fast on the other side,
For when as ,in the second Psalme,they reade of their
Meßias, that he shall haue the heathen for his inheritance,and the vttermost parts of the earth for his posseßi- Psal.2.8.9.
on : that he shall crush them with a scepter of yron, and
breake them in peeces like a potters vessel, they affirme,
that all the world must bee subdued by force and
violence vnto Messiah ,
An
opinion that preuailed much in the time of Christ, as appeareth not
onely by diuerse others, but also by the Apostles,
who encountred our Sauior Christ thus, before his
ascension. Lord wilt thou at this time restore the king- Acts 1.6.
dome to Israel. But they also make but an vncomfortable blessing of this blessednes of Abraham. The
phrase is plaine, that in Abraham all the families of
the earth shall be blessed. A blessednes then must the
Gentiles trust to receiue from Abraham. Particuly these things are deliuered in the Scripture, which,
I thinke, no distinctions of hyperbole, nor spiritually,
nor at the last iudgement, can delude, which are the
ordinary refuges of them that,
out of preiudice,
would faine put by the truth.
Daniell hath it thus , A stone was cut without hands, Dan.2.35.
and smote the image vpon the feete,and brake them in
peeces. Then was the yron,the clay the brasse, the siluer,
and gold broken together, and became like chaffe of the
summer flowers, and the winde carried them away, that
no place was found for them : and the stone, that smote
the image , became a greate mountaine , and filled the
whole earth.
Here,first,we plainly see,that Christ must destroy
H
the
50
V
i r g i n e a.
the Monarches that they be not foud. And so much
of this speech doth S. Paul interprete thus plainely.
1.Cor,15.24.
That Christ shall put downe all rule , and all authoritie,
25.26.
and power. For he must reigne,till hee hath put all his enemies, vnder his feete : the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, The other part of Daniels speech,
Dauid doth thus expresse, in the Psalme. Thou Lorde
Psal.82.6.
shalt inherit all nations. And this point the Prophet
Zachary doth render thus. The Lord shall bee King ouer all the earth, In that day there shall be one Lord, and
Zach.14.19.
his name shall be one : so that no other God shall bee
named in all the worlde. But lest any should vnderstand this point of the last iudgement, and so place
earth in heauen ; Daniell sheweth how the Lord
shall be king,his words are these. The kingdome and
dominion,and greatnes of his kingdome vnder the whole
Dan.7.27.
heauen shall be giuen to the holy people of the most high,
whose kingdome is an euerlasting kingdome,and al powers shall serue and obey him. But what shal he abolish
kings,and bring all to a Popularity? no such matter,
God is the author of order; and not of confusion. The
1.Cor.14.33
kingdomes of this world shall bee our Lords, and his
Reuel.11.15.
Christs , and hee shall raigne for euermore, by Kings
1 Chro.30.23 conuerted to the Gospell. For godly Kings doe sit
Psa.93.& 97.
on the throne of the Lord,and by them the Lord reigneth
& 99.
The beginning of this alteration Isaiah expresseth
thus. Kings shall be thy nursing Fathers, and Queenes
Isai.49.23.
shall be thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their faces towards the earth,and licke vp the dust of thy feete.
But least any man should say , it may bee some, but
what is that to the rest ? Dauid answereth thus, The
Kings
B r i t a n n i a.
Kings of Tarshish,and of the Iles shall bring presents. The
Kings of Sheba, and Seba, shall bring gifts, yea All
Kings shall worship him, All nations shall serue him.
And againe,The Lord is high and terrible : A great
King ouer all the earth.And again in the same Psalme.
God is King ouer all the earth, sing praises, whosoeuer
hath vnderstanding. God reigneth ouer the heathen &c.
If any do yet think that they shall serue him as the
Kings did Iosuah,when he set his feet on their necks:
the blessed scripture saith no. For the Psalme hath it
thus. All Kings of the earth shall praise thee,O Lord, for
they haue heard the words of thy mouth. A thing which
they will not doe at the resurrection; when going
to hell thy shall say : When saw we thee an hungred, or a
thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sicke or in prison &c?
And as the scripture is very particular in setting
down the state of the kings, how they shall stand affected to the Gospell, so doth it of the people. First
Dauid saith All the people shall see thy glory. But that is
not sufficient, wherefore S. Iohn,in the Reuelation
goeth farther thus. All nations shall come and worship
before thee,O Lord. Isaiah hath it thus,, I haue sworne
by my selfe, and the worde is gone out of my mouth in
righteousnes, and shall not returne : that euery knee shall
bow vnto mee, and euery tongue shall sweare by mee.
Which Saint Paul expresseth thus. God hath exalted
Christ Iesus and giuen him a name aboue all names:that
at the name of Iesus should euery knee bow, and that euery tongue should confesse that Iesus is the Lord, vnto the
glory of God the Father. Malachie yet goeth further
thus : From the rising of the Sun, to the going downe of
H 2
the
51
Psal.72.10.11.
Psal.47 .6.
Iosh.10.24.
Psal.138.4.
Mat.25.45.
Psal.97.6.
Reuel.15.5.
Isai.45.23.
Phil.2.9.10.
Mala.1.11.
52
V
i r g i n e a.
the same, My name is great among the Gentiles, and
in euery place incense shall be offred vnto thy name, and
Psal.47.9.
a pure offring. The Psalme saith also, The princes of the
people are gathered vnto the people of the God of Abraham. To conclude this point the Prophet Isaiah saith
From moneth to moneth, and from Saboth, to Saboth,
Isai.66.23.
shall all flesh come to worship me ; saith the Lord.
The summe is, what blessing any Nation had by
Christ, must be Communicated to all Nations : the
office of his Prophecie to teach the ignorant ; the
office of his Priesthood, to giue remission of sinnes
to the sinnefull: the office of his kingdome,by word,
and Sacraments , and spirit , to rule the inordinate:
that such as are dead in trespasses , may be made to sit toEphe.2.1.&c.
gether in heauenly places. For there is no difference beRom.10.12.
tweene the Iew,and the Grecian. For he that is Lord ouer all, is rich vnto all, that call vpon him. For it well
beseemeth the glory of God to triumph ouer his enReasons from
emies : and the Wisdome of God(after the world
Gods attributes.
hath had plentifull experience of the craft of the diuell,and wicked men of all sortes)to exalte the Gospell , the wisedome of God : As also his Power to bee
declared , when all his enemies had shewed their
force; and his Mercy to his Saints,after so great exercises of patience ; and his iustice , to shewe his
iudgements, in condemning those that haue spoken
proud words, and done wicked deeds , to his seruants. But especially to his Glory, in exalting his
sonne, and crowning him with Glory, & Worship,
that we may see that , which yet we see not : All
Heb.2.8.
things be put in subiection vnto him. It is true that ma ny
B r i t a n n i a.
53
ny obiections are made against this doctrine, out of
such places as this. When the sonne of man commeth, Luk.18.8.
shall he finde faith on the earth? And of Antichrist,whom
the Lord shall abolish, by the brightnesse of his comming. 2.Thes.2.8.
But partly, for want of Grammer learning,to know
the meaning of the word Come, and partly for want
of Logick,to lay out those places to their due times:
those Scriptures,and many more,are racked by such
men out of their ioints : which rightly vnderstood,
haue a cleane other sense , then that for which they
are alleadged:which neither this time nor place will
giue me leaue to dispute.
Wherefore standing to
our owne first grounde, learne first to bee sparing in
abridging the glory of God;which made the world, V s e.
Be sparing in
that his Sonne might rule ouer all. For howsoeuer, shortning the
for some good causes, God would not make himself glory of God.
glorious at the first, but would seeme to hide the
glory of God in the passion of his Sonne,and affliction of his Saints; and permitting Antichrist to
clime to his height, that those that are perfect may
be knowne: yet questionlesse, Christ must sit at the Psal.110.1.
right hand of his Father, till all hi enemies bee made his 1.Cor.15.
footestoole,and then shall come from thence to iudge
the quick and the dead.
Againe, if it be Gods purpose, that the Gospell
shall be preached through the world for a witnesse, I I.
then ought ministers to bee carefull and willing to
spread it abroad,in such good seruices as this,that is
intended. Sure it is great shame vnto vs, of the ministery,that can be better content, to sit, and rest vs
heere idle,then vndergoe so good a worke. Our pre
H 3
tence
54
V i r g i n e a.
tence of zeale,is cleare discouered to be but hypocrisie, when we rather choose to minde vnprofitable
questions at home,then gaining soules abroad. It is
a singular sin for men to be ouercome with euill, it
is a shame that the Iesuites and Friers,that accompany euery ship,should be so diligent to destroy souls,
and wee not seeke the tender lambes, nor bind vp
that which is broken.
But go on couragiously , and notwithstanding
the snorting idlenes of the ministery, suspect not the
2 King.5.2.
blessing of God. A captiue girle, brought Naman to
the Prophet. A captiue woman , was the meanes
of conuerting Iberia,now called Georgia. Eedesius, &
Ruffinus Eccle.
Hist.lib.I.cap. Frumentius, two captiue youthes, were the meanes
9.10.
of bringing the gospell into India. God makes the
1.Cor.1.
weake thinges of the worlde confound the mighty,
and getteth himselfe praise by the mouth of Babes
and sucklings. Be cheerfull then, and the Lord of
all glory, glorifie his name by your happy spreading of the gospell, to your commendation, and his glory, that is Lord of
all things,to whom be power
and dominion for euer.
Hallelu-iah.
F I N I S.